Poem by Michael Brown

Introduction by Carl Elliott, SPP Conservation and Restoration Coordinator

While working with the dedicated prairie crew from CCCC, the spring quickly blows by and work is often performed in hints of hot summer weather. The crew has ably taken on a wide range of tasks on the prairies, and at the conservation nursery and seed production farm. Staff from WDFW, WDNR, SPP and CNLM have been enjoying sharing information and skills. The work presents a steep learning curve in botany, ecology and nursery production. Not only has the crew been learning skills, also the work for conservation and service to ecological restoration has inspired one technician to create poems about service and restoration of Earth’s ecosystems:

Editor’s note:  Today’s post was written by an inmate and SPP lecture series attendee at Washington Corrections Center for Women.  On May 7, Lynne Weber from West Sound Wildlife Shelter visited WCCW with Yukon, a red-tailed hawk, and Remington, a turkey vulture, to talk to the inmates about wildlife rehabilitation.

WCCW’s Science & Sustainability Lecture Series: An Inmate’s Perspective

By Jain Cannard,* WCCW

I have attended several Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP) lectures here at WCCW and always come away having learned some amazing facts. The lecture today on raptors was an experience of a lifetime! Seeing those incredible birds up close allows us to better understand how our ecosystem works, and that each part of the chain is important and vital.

Lynne Weber and Remington, a turkey vulture, visited WCCW on May 7 and presented to a record crowd of 73 inmates.

Your work here at WCCW helps to make these women better stewards of their community resources, better parents, and better citizens. That’s important work!

Each lecture is so different – I look forward to learning and researching the subject so I can imagine what the lecture will be like.  I am always surprised!

The surveys are also interesting. Who knew that opossums love slugs?! It’s good that SOMEONE loves them. The survey is a concrete way to ascertain how much we learn.

Thanks – please keep coming!

Wildlife rehabilitation specialist Lynne Weber and red-tailed hawk Yukon answered inmate questions about West Sound Wildlife Shelter.

Inmates had the opportunity to examine red-tailed hawk feathers during the presentation.

Lynne, Yukon, and Remington were a huge hit at WCCW! Photos by R. Stendahl.

*name used with permission

By Carl Elliott
Conservation and Restoration Coordinator

Inmate work crews from the Washington Department of Corrections (WDOC) have worked in the community for over 20 years. These off-site crews maintain the infrastructure along highways and at parks and public facilities throughout the state. The Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP) recognized the value that the crews from Cedar Creek Correction Center (CCCC), could bring to restoration work on south Puget Sound prairies. Through a close collaboration with the Center for Natural Lands Management (CNLM), Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Washington Department of Natural Resources, a CCCC community crew of ten men dedicated to prairie habitat restoration just began their first week of work.

The new crew’s enthusiasm and eagerness to learn was evident from the first day. Many expressed a sharp interest in the cultivation techniques of prairie plants at the nursery site and the seed farm. We expect their learning curve will be steep. Restoration on prairies is a complex and interdisciplinary undertaking. The crew will gain and improve skills in a wide variety of techniques, including plant propagation, noxious weed control, seed production and processing, prescribed fire techniques, and plant re-introduction.

The staff, officers, and inmates at CCCC have shown incredible support for establishing the new crew. SPP and CNLM look forward to providing instruction, resources, and guidance to the crews so their work will be an enriching educational experience at the same time as they contribute to regional restoration efforts. The on-going conservation programs at WDOC facilities raising Oregon Spotted Frogs, Taylor’s checkerspot butterflies, and prairie plants, will provide a foundation of curriculum, restoration reference materials, and protocols that can lead to the crew’s success. The investment and optimism shared by all parties suggests a bright future for this new endeavor.

Editor’s note: Today’s blog post was written by an instructor in the Roots of Success program at Washington State Penitentiary (WSP) in Walla Walla. Roots of Success is an environmental literacy curriculum used nationwide that has just been implemented at four Washington DOC facilities, including WSP. Interested inmates are trained as instructors in the curriculum. With staff supervision, they teach classes of their peers about a variety of environmental topics. 

“Root View”: My Experience as a new Roots of Success Instructor
by Michael Oakes, Roots of Success Instructor

What the heck is “Environmental Literacy” anyway? That’s an expression used a lot in the descriptions of the Roots of Success program. My assumption, as I signed up to become an instructor, was that it was like being “computer literate,” and that turned out to be pretty much on mark. The rest of my assumptions about the program were pretty quickly demolished when I stepped into the day-long instructor course, taught by Dr. Raquel Pinderhughes. I assumed this was likely to be a feel-good icing of basic information dumbed-down to be accessible. In reality, it turned out to be a re-packaged post-graduate curriculum. I assumed we would have a harried mid-level instructor basically providing an official stamp on a diploma-mill, and instead I found a professional, exacting teaching methodology taught to us by Dr. Pinderhughes herself.

Though I was pleasantly surprised and impressed, a question remained: Would inmate students connect with the material? Would this represent nothing more than yet another time sink for people trying to burn time any way they could?

My first indication that I was not alone in seeing the value of Roots of Success was in speaking with my fellow instructors, who came from a variety of backgrounds and had a broad range of views about world politics. Every one of them found some area of the curriculum where they connected and developed genuine passion. That provided some reassurance.

The next milepost came with my preliminary introduction to our students. As we spoke about the curriculum and how it would mesh with the greater sustainability program here at WSP SPL (Washington State Penitentiary’s Sustainable Practices Lab), I heard one guy say, “I never thought I would get jazzed about what earthworms can do.”

The author instructs fellow inmates on the first day of Roots of Success classes at Washington State Penitentiary. Photo by R. Branscum.

In speaking with them about seeking “green” jobs when their sentences are served, more than half of the students were immediately enthusiastic about the idea of work where they might be earning the same wages they are used to, but wherein they go to work every day knowing that they are working toward a cleaner, greener, more sustainable world.

Most of the students come from backgrounds flavored with despair and hopelessness, and the challenges to the environment can sometimes feel pretty desperate indeed. ​Roots of Success​ brings that key second component that has been missing in the worldview for most of us. It lights a path toward hope. It paints a picture of a conflict that, for once, is not only winnable, but a conflict that will have no losers at all. In that sense, the first “Root” of success is seeing the difference that even a pretty simple guy can make in a world where earthworms and honeybees are our fellow troops.