On a fall morning, the sun shone through the trees in Clemens Park, about a half-hour drive southwest of Corvallis. Leaves crunched under boots. The air was crisp, cold and earthy.
A group of sixth graders from Corvallis’ Franklin K-8 School would spend the next several hours conducting science experiments at different stations along the Alsea River and the forested path.
Every fall, students in the Willamette Valley journey to this park to learn firsthand about salmon and their freshwater ecosystems through the Benton County Salmon Watch program. The annual field trip has connected tens of thousands of local students with Oregon’s salmon migration for decades.
The students must answer a vital question: “Is this river healthy for salmon?”
Students from College Hill High School lead an activity for Corvallis sixth graders at Clemens Park.
Natalie Pate / OPB
The water needs to be clean, cold and clear, and the surrounding land needs to be complex, with trees, rocks, plants and creatures of all kinds.
These trips are organized to help students experience learning in action.
They learned what aquatic macroinvertebrates are — like crawdads — and went to find them in the river to study. They put on heavy boots to wade in the water, nets in hand, before scooping up the tiny critters.
Later, they tested the clarity and pH levels of the water to see if it was safe for the fish who swim there to spawn.
They saw a female fish thrashing in the water as she hid her eggs. The students analyzed the trees, rocks and foliage to understand how the surrounding environment affects the fish, too.
“This is such a great age for curiosity about their world, I think,” said Sara Roberts, the Community Engagement Coordinator at the Benton Soil and Water Conservation District. This was her third year running the program.
“The whole day out here, touching the river, touching the plants, seeing the salmon with their own eyes,” she said. “I think it just starts to really foster that relationship between the kids and the world around them.”
Sixth grader Hazel uses a net to catch small critters at Clemens Park in Alsea, Ore., on Nov. 7, 2024. The students are testing the river's health for spawning salmon.
Natalie Pate / OPB
The program runs for six weeks in the fall and is geared mostly toward students in grades 4-6. Roberts said that upwards of 700 kids participate each year. A few staff members and dozens of volunteers — sometimes including local high school students — make it happen.
Roberts said they’re lucky to have dedicated funding for the program — not everywhere does.
“To me, the coolest thing about salmon is they’re such a great way to connect with our place and with being an Oregonian,” she said, “because they return to the same rivers in the same places to spawn every single year, despite having gone out to the ocean, sometimes thousands of miles for three to five years.
“And then somehow they find their way back up our rivers, you know, into our backyards, basically.”
If anyone knows the value of this program for students, it’s Franklin sixth grade teacher Mara Burke. She’s been bringing students from different schools to participate in the Salmon Watch for 20 years.
She said, “I definitely see some kids that in a traditional classroom setting, they are not engaged to the level that they are today.”
