Category Archives: Nature inside

Beekeeping with Norway

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in Nature inside Prison Life

By Paul Thorsteinson, Apprentice Level Beekeeper

On October 7th, 2025 the unthinkable happened. In a video conference made possible by Microsoft Teams, three separate prisons connected from different sides of the world. This meeting was the first of its kind. It consisted of two Norwegian Prisons and Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Aberdeen, Washington. The conservation that ensued was the defining aspect of what made this global connection unique. They didn’t connect to talk about criminal justice. They didn’t talk about prison cells or chow hall meals. They connected to talk about bees.

SPP Beekeeper Paul Thorsteinson poses with the SCCC apiary. Photo by Emily Passarelli.

The prisoners from Stafford Creek shared a presentation about their facility’s growing apiary and the benefits of sustainable practices learned in prisons. They talk about how bees are a necessary component to ecological survival and how if bees disappeared, the entire world’s agricultural system would collapse within just four years. They shared the benefits of honey being a pure food source that never spoils. One of the most compelling examples was pots of honey found in Egyptian tombs that were still edible even after thousands of years in storage.

Stafford Creek’s apiary is full of color and life. Photo by Emily Passarelli.

The Stafford Creek beekeepers went on to share with the Norwegians the different bee products they were able to make at their facility. All of the items were made from resources that were harvested directly from their local apiary. They called their process Bee Alchemy. The products ranged from candles, beard balm, lip balm, and even a few gallons of honey. All of these items made at Stafford Creek are donated back to the community.

Paul poses with the hive he’s responsible for as a prospective journeyman beekeeper. Photo by Emily Passarelli.

One incarcerated presenter even shared his entire testimony fully dressed in a white beekeeper’s suit. After sharing a short video of Stafford Creek’s hives, he described the overwintering practices and the necessary activities needed to improve the bees’ chances of survival during the cold, wet winter months.

The international presentation of bees to multiple incarcerated community was the first of its kind. It had never been done before. Sustainability has never been discussed by incarcerated people from different parts of the world. All of this was made possible through a new Washington Way initiative called Cell-2-Cell. It is a fully interactive connective platform that unites incarcerated people on different sides of the world so that they can share their life experiences and culture.  Starting just two years ago, Cell-2-Cell is realizing its revolutionary potential to connect communities, talk about bees, and change the world.

Are Octopuses Smarter Than a 5th Grader? A Workshop on Octopus Intelligence at WCCW

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in Biology Community Contributions Nature inside Science

Are octopuses smarter than a 5th grader? Are you? How do we measure intelligence? In a June workshop at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW), Rus Higley and Aeriel Wauhob from MaST Center Aquarium posed these questions to a group of incarcerated students who are part of the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound (FEPPS). FEPPS is a non-profit organization that offers Associates of Arts and Bachelor of Arts degree to incarcerated people at WCCW.

In a fantastic presentation given by Higley, students watched amazing videos of camouflaged octopuses, learned about species native to the PNW, and even got to meet a live juvenile Pacific red octopus! 

Russ Higley from the MaST Center Aquarium in Tacoma explains octopus anatomy. Photo by Emily Passarelli.
Red pacific octopus (Octopus rubescens). Photo by Emily Passarelli. 

Octopuses use tools, have spatial memories and personalities, and engage in play, all attributes that humans consider signs of intelligence. So, ARE octopuses smarter than 5th graders? It’s complicated. While an octopus may not pass a 5th grade multiple choice test, the workshop hosts and participants all agreed that knowing facts on a test was not the best way to measure intelligence, especially for a creature who has nerve cells (like the ones found in our brains) in all eight of its arms! 

Andrew Campbell from the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound (FEPPS) looks at the Pacific red octopus.
Russ Higley (right) points out octopus anatomy to SPP coordinator Anneke Wilder (left) and student Tatiana Baker (middle).
Olivia Bebic gets an up-close look at the Pacific red octopus.  

As SPP continues to ramp up our workshop offerings, now is a great time to get in touch if you or someone you know may be interested in offering a workshop in a prison facility. Contact Michael Zirpoli at michael.zirpoli@evergreen.edu for more information! Workshops provide fantastic opportunities for community learning exchanges, and they are an integral part of our educational offerings at SPP. 

How trees connect nature and people: Workshop at Stafford Creek with Nalini Nadkarni 

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in Community Contributions Education Nature inside

Nalini Nadkarni discusses the science of moss and ferns with students from Stafford Creek Correctional Center. Photo by Nat Kelly.  

In late February, a special workshop was hosted at Stafford Creek Correctional Center. Renowned ecologist and SPP co-founder Nalini Nadkarni gave a talk about how trees connect nature and people. Nadkarni herself has a very special relationship with trees: she pioneered research in the cloud forest canopies of Costa Rica, using mountain climbing equipment to reach high into the branches. This research helped scientists learn more about the role that epiphytes, which are non-parasitic plants such as moss and ferns that live on the branches and trunks of other plants, play in forest ecology.  

Nadkarni speaking about the connections between people and trees to a crowd of incarcerated students. Photo by Nat Kelly.  

Nadkarni spoke to the crowd about the importance of communicating science to the broader community, drawing on her experience collaborating with churches and prisons throughout her career. Through her work, she hopes to make scientific research and its implications more accessible to non-scientists. 

Students ask thoughtful questions at the end of Nadkarni’s talk. Photo by Nat Kelly. 

The workshop was well attended by incarcerated students, SCCC staff, and SPP staff. We were even joined by a film crew that is creating a documentary about Nadkarni and her work for National Geographic!  Students had the opportunity to ask questions for over an hour after Nadkarni’s talk ended, which made for a great learning exchange and wrap up to the workshop. To learn more about Nadkarni and her work you can visit her website: https://www.nalininadkarni.com/ 

A film crew captures Nadkarni speaking with students about her research. Photo by Nat Kelly.

Nature Drawing at WCCW

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in Education Nature inside

SPP Workshops are starting back up in facilities after a hiatus, and we couldn’t be more excited! Recently SPP kicked off this initiative by hosting its first workshop since pre-pandemic at Washington Corrections Center for Women. 

The Introduction to Nature Drawing Workshop was a huge hit! Drawing from her background in scientific illustration, SPP Coordinator and artist Anneke Wilder led the workshop. Students learned about the history of nature drawing and illustration as well as some drawing tips and tricks. The second half of the workshop the students spent some time sketching from books or specimen that were brought in. Some SPP staff even joined in on the fun! 

We’re looking forward to bringing in more experts and educators that offer unique learning experiences to incarcerated students. 

Kelli Buggs Jones draws a few different specimen. Photo by Emily Passarelli. 

 

A student sketches a cedar frond. Photo by Emily Passarelli.  

 

Tatiana Baker shows off her drawing of a flower. Photo by Emily Passarelli.

 

SPP Coordinator and workshop host Anneke Wilder gives Michelle Gabel some tips on shading. Photo by Emily Passarelli.

 

Students got to choose from a variety of specimen for drawing subjects. Photo by Emily Passarelli.

 

Student Michelle Nichols and SPP Coordinator Laureen Dulo use images from books as references. Photo by Emily Passarelli.  

 

 

SPP Bees Preparing for Winter

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in Education Nature inside

As the cold and rainy months appear, the SPP beekeepers are preparing to tuck the bees in for the winter.  

After a long season of sunshine and collecting pollen, the bees are starting to return to the hives for the colder months. While bees do not necessarily hibernate in the winter, they do retreat to their hives and stick closely together when the temperature drops below 50 degrees Fahrenheit to stay warm. Winter can be a difficult time for bees and their beekeepers. An article written by NPR, stated that in 2019, about 40% of hives did not survive the winter. The SPP beekeepers at various facilities are hard at work to protect the bees from mites, harsh temperatures, and heavy rain.  

Stafford Creek Corrections Center

Beekeepers at Stafford Creek Corrections Center are testing an insulated hive this winter. The bee club introduced the hive in September, carefully transferring bees from a wooden hive frame to a plastic insulated hive.  

The new insulated hive at SCCC by the old wooden hive. Photo by Shohei Morita.

While transferring the hive, the bee club was surprised to find that one hive was missing a Queen! The bee club conducted a detailed search of every panel and used the situation to teach new beekeepers about the signs of a missing queen and overall bee health.   

SCCC Bee Club members comb through the wooden frames looking for a Queen. Photo by Shohei Morita.

After combining two hives in the insulated hive, SCCC bee club and bees are prepared for the winter! The bees adjusted well to the new hive and are beginning to return, store honey, and cluster together for the winter.  

Cedar Creek Corrections Center

The Cedar Creek beekeepers are also busy preparing the bees for winter. The bees at McNeil Island are still bringing some colorful pollen into the hive as well as propolis from tree resins to fill any cracks in the hive before winter. 

Bees at the small entrance that Cedar Creek beekeepers will modify before winter. The bees have propolized the edge of the wood to completely seal the hive.  Photo by Laurie Pyne at McNeil Island.  

The Cedar Creek beekeepers provided additional feed and are providing ample amounts of liquid syrup to help prepare for the cooler months. As the temperature begins to get colder, the beekeepers are prepared to add a sugar brick for emergencies and to apply quilt boxes with more shavings.  

Washington Corrections Center for Women

Beekeepers at Washington Corrections Center for Women are preparing for winter by building quilt boxes and making sugar cakes. The WCCW beekeepers have four healthy hives heading into the cooler months and are currently going through twenty cups of sugar a week! 

Beehive at WCCW. Photo by SPP Staff.

 The beekeepers use cedar ships to fill the quilt boxes and are actively monitoring to prevent hornet invasion. In the coming months, the beekeepers are excited to host educational group classes while the bees cluster for the winter.  

While the bees are heading in for the winter, SPP beekeepers are headed to the hives to prepare dry, warm, and cozy environments for the coming months.  

Why Aquaponics in Prison?

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in collaboration Gardens Health Inmate Voices Nature inside Prison Life Sustainable Operations

By William Rathgeber, SPP Biological Science Technician. Photos by Marisa Pushee.

In early 2018, the Sustainability in Prison Project (SPP) partnered with Symbiotic Cycles to bring aquaponic gardening to Cedar Creek Corrections Center. I joined the program in spring of 2019 and I’m excited to be a part of this project because I view sustainability as a critical element of food security. This program exposes incarcerated individuals like myself to a new skill set required for maintaining alternative agriculture practices. I have also been excited to learn that this rapidly growing field is gaining momentum worldwide both as a backyard hobby and as a larger-scale means to harvest produce without tilling and weeding.

From left to right: SPP Biological Science Technician William Rathgeber, Symbiotic Cycles Co-founder Nick Naselli, and SPP Biological Science Technician Sanchez Bagley.

Aquaponic gardens can produce food naturally and organically with much less water than a conventional garden. Aquaponics is also more sustainable than traditional farming practices. The project comprises of an aquaculture system based on a symbiotic relationship between bacteria, plants, and fish in a closed ecosystem. The plants grow in a soil-free aquaculture and the plant roots clean the water for the fish while the fish provide nutrients for the plants. The plants and the fish work together so the water can be recycled indefinitely. Only evaporated water needs to be replenished. 

Environmental, economic, and health concerns are excellent reasons to adopt an aquaponic garden. Aquaponic gardening offers a chance to reduce our carbon footprint because the produce being harvested doesn’t have to travel hundreds of miles to your grocery store. It also doesn’t add fertilizers that can pollute the local water reservoir or harm the local flora and fauna. Additionally, aquaponics is becoming popular among young and old locavores (people who buy local) concerned with nutrition, avoiding artificial additives, and protecting the environment.

Kale has been a consistent success in the system, growing well through the winter.

In an increasingly environmental and sustainable focused world, these alternative agriculture practices prepare incarcerated individuals to have skill sets that will compete with the changing times. While incarcerated, we are not only educated in this alternative aquaculture practice but we get to provide the fruits of our labor to the kitchen for mainline meals. The Cedar Creek aquaponics system is supported by the design team at Symbiotic Cycles. They also provide consultation and informational on-site visits conducting hands-on question/answer seminars for Cedar Creek SPP Technicians and Centralia College Horticulture students.

Garden expansion and delicious prison bananas: Olympic Corrections Center Horticulture Program

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in Biology collaboration Education Nature inside

Text and photos by Bethany J. Shepler, Green Track Program Coordinator

Planted and cared for by the horticulture students at Olympic Corrections Center, these roses, are ready to bloom.

I had the pleasure of visiting Olympic Corrections Center (OCC) in June. I was excited to see all of the gardens’ growth and expansion since my visit last year. After my visit last year, I published a blog about the different sustainability programming at OCC. Though my visits were in different seasons, comparisons were still clear.
OCC is on the Olympic Peninsula surrounded by the PNW’s famous temperate rainforest and gets rain most days of the year. OCC is referred to as a “camp”–meaning it houses people who have 4 years or less on their prison sentence–and currently houses about 380 incarcerated individuals. OCC offers some incredible sustainability programs including horticulture, a pre-apprenticeship trade skills program similar to TRAC, wastewater treatment, composting, wood shop, and dog training. OCC also partners with Peninsula College to offer educational opportunities. OCC’s horticulture program, sponsored by instructor Jamie Calley, allows students to take classes, plant and maintain gardens, design and implement projects, and earn certificates for their work.

This landscaping surrounds the greenhouses at OCC… the “H” is for horticulture!

When I first arrived, the facility looked pretty much the same: fences, buildings, lots of tan outfits. But, once I got inside and I was blown away by all of the plant growth and garden expansion in the horticulture area. The horticulture program’s hard work and innovation were well apparent: they’d added whole garden areas, flowerbeds encircling the greenhouses, and additional landscaping in the established garden area. In just over a year, the horticulture students and Ms. Calley have transformed OCC.

Below are pictures of the horticulture area from both my visit in March of 2018 and my most recent visit in June. They really illustrate how much the program participants have accomplished in a year.

  • March 2018
  • June 2019
  • March 2018
  • June 2019
This vegetable garden is a new addition since I visited last year. The horticulturists have been busy!
These bananas grow inside the greenhouse – I got to eat one and they are delicious!
Jamie Calley is the staff sponsor for the horticulture program at OCC. Here, Jamie is looking at some of the beautiful landscaping and gardens the horticulture cared for by students. Without a doubt, her enthusiastic support and advocacy for this program has enabled progress and expansions in the program.

Seed to Supper: a bittersweet goodbye

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in collaboration Education Gardens Nature inside

By Jacob Meyers, Conservation Nursery Coordinator

For the past year and a half, I’ve had a truly unique and remarkable opportunity. Once per month, I made the hour long trek out to Washington’s coast, not to surf or go clamming, but to teach a garden class to over 50 incarcerated individuals. The garden class began as a way for Ed Baldwin, the Ground/Nursery Specialist at Stafford Creek Corrections Center (SCCC), to support and encourage the gardens at the facility. Former SPP Coordinator, Joey Burgess, joined the effort by offering a superb (and free) introductory gardening curriculum called Seed to Supper. Oregon Food Bank and Oregon State University Extension Service teamed up to create the course which aims to educate and inspire adults to grow a portion of their own food and build more food secure communities. Topics covered range from building and planning to maintaining and harvesting a garden.

A PowerPoint slide from one of the very first lessons of the Seed to Supper curriculum.

During one of my first trips to prison, I got to watch Joey teach one of these classes. Joey made teaching look effortless with a laid back, but confident persona. But the following month, it was me up in front of 50 inmates and not Joey. I’m not a shy person by any means (I acted on stage in college and high school in front of well more than 50 people) but this was a bit different. For one, when I started I was by no means ‘an expert’ on gardening. And two, I wasn’t sure how well my teaching style would be received.

SPP Nursery Coordinator, Joey Burgess, presenting the Seed to Supper curriculum to gardeners at Stafford Creek Correctional Center. Photo Credit: Ricky Osborne

I remember staying up late the night before my first class scouring the material over and over to make sure I could answer any and every question thrown my way. Of course, I had no such luck. But at the same time I find it kind of funny that I was so worried. I should have guessed that the class would be full of smart, thoughtful, knowledgeable and kind individuals, and it was. They asked me tough questions and challenged me. They took what I offered them, and—with their ideas and questions—made it better. I had been too focused not being a gardening expert or  that I am not a perfect teacher. It was helpful to remember that the students weren’t expecting me to be just as I wasn’t expecting them to be perfect students, or any of us to be perfect people. Sure, these men (and women) have made mistakes, but they are people. Many of whom are eager and thirsty for knowledge.

One of the unit gardeners at SCCC raises his hand to ask a question.
Photo credit: Ricky Osborne

So for the past year and a half I’ve made the same trek every month not just to teach a group of men about gardening and growing vegetables, but also to learn from them.

However, in 2019 the gardening education program is transitioning and so is my role in it. I won’t be leading the class at SCCC anymore, but there are exciting developments underway. SPP has signed an agreement with Oregon Food Bank to propose changes to the Seeds to Supper curriculum. SPP staff along with incarcerated students and educators at Monroe Correctional Complex and Stafford Creek Corrections Center, Department of Corrections staff, Institute for Applied Ecology, University Beyond Bars, and Tilth Alliance, will be suggesting revisions to the existing Seed to Supper curriculum, enhancing the course with additional modules on select topics, and transitioning the resources to support a peer-led model. Developing this peer-led format builds on a growing number of efforts to empower incarcerated people with resources and support to increase educational opportunities in prisons across the state. So while it means my time delivering the program has ended, the possibility for reaching more incarcerated men and women and sharing the joys and wonders of gardening has never been higher.

And so to the unit gardeners I had the privilege to teach and learn with and to the staff at Stafford Creek I got to work with, I say goodbye for now. Hopefully someday, I will see you in the garden.

Flowers in full bloom at one of the gardens at Stafford Creek Corrections Center.
Photo credit: Ricky Osborne

Art of the Oregon silverspot butterfly

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in Biology Conservation Programs Ecological Restoration Education Nature inside Partners Prison Life Science SPP Network

By SPP SCCC Conservation Nursery Coordinator Graham Klag

Fall colors continue to take flight at Stafford Creek Corrections Center through the artistic talents of conservation technician Michael! Inspired by SPP lectures and nursery work, Michael’s artistic illustrations of the Oregon silverspot butterfly (Speryeria zerene hippolyta) captures the beauty of prairie conservation work. The Early blue violet (Viola adunca) is grown at SPP Prairie Conservation Nurseries for the Oregon silverspot butterfly.

The Early blue violet is the sole host plant for the caterpillar of the butterfly who needs to eat ~ 250 violet leaves to complete its life cycle. Michael and the conservation technician crew at Stafford Creek continuing to grow their knowledge of Washington and Oregon’s prairie ecosystems, while out growing the Early blue violet, for the habitat and lifecycle of Oregon silverspot butterfly. SPP is thankful for our conservation technicians’ work and artistic inspiration!