Category Archives: Partners

Excellent Student and Teacher

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in Conservation Programs Ecological Restoration Inmate Voices Nature inside Partners Prison Life

By Susan Christopher, Butterfly Technician, Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women

On his last day in the program, Seth holds a thank you card from the butterfly technicians. Photo by Keegan Curry.

The butterfly technicians from Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women (MCCCW) would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to our departing program coordinator, Mr. Seth Dorman.

Mr. Dorman was with the program for about a year and a half. During that time his dedication and work ethic inspired us to be the best workers, students, and scientists we could be.

Seth and butterfly technicians carefully work through “spring wake-up,” the time when the caterpillars come out of winter dormancy. Photo by a technician.

He was both an excellent student and teacher. He learned very quickly about DOC policies and SPP’s butterfly program. He treated us with respect, encouraged us to think outside the box and to step outside our comfort zone and share those ideas. He displayed tremendous patience and a great sense of humor, even while trying to explain the concept of a “null hypothesis” to us.

Mr. Dorman’s coordination efforts produced, for the first time ever, the opportunity for two technicians to join a butterfly release. Also due to his efforts, all four technicians attended the Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly working group meeting, where we had input on region-wide efforts to protect and recover the endangered species.

We consider ourselves fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with Mr. Dorman: Thank you, Seth; we wish you the utmost success in all your future endeavors.

The Many Benefits of Working With Students

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in Education Partners

Photos clockwise from the top left: Sadie Gilliom (ball cap), Ricky Johnson, Daniel Cherniske, Conrad Ely, and Lindsey Hamilton working in prisons. Photo of Conrad by Ricky Osborne.

By Joslyn Rose Trivett, SPP Education and Outreach Manager

Our winter newsletter is about the many, wonderful students who work for the Sustainability in Prisons Project (SPP). SPP could not be what it is without them.

SPP-Evergreen team, 2011. Unknown photographer.

SPP’s founding director at The Evergreen State College hired graduate students to support prison programs beginning in 2008; that was when SPP was gaining traction as a more formal effort, and was growing in scale and scope (more about history here). At first, the workload demanded just one or two students at a time, and those individuals worked broadly—for multiple programs—to build partnerships and disseminate results. Over time, the number and complexity of programs being coordinated by SPP-Evergreen increased resulting in the current model: a student coordinating each ecological conservation and environmental education program.

SPP-Evergreen graduation party, 2013. Photo by Tony Bush.

We rely on student-staff Program Coordinators in myriad ways. They are the ones most often going into the prisons. They serve as the face of a program, and the leads for communicating details—large and small—that are part of the program’s successes. They continually add to the educational breadth of each program in many forms: formal presentations, seminars on scientific papers, hosting a partner-scientist’s visit, recommending readings, and countless conversations about programs’ plans, impacts, and larger context. Students also study SPP programs; they help track and evaluate the quality of each program, and ten have conducted formal research on SPP topics (a few examples here). Each student brings a unique perspective to SPP, and our programs are enriched by their energies and cutting-edge ideas.

Graduation brings an end to student-staff employment. Each coordinator trains their successor, which is as much about introducing them to the culture and ways of thinking as it is about program policy and protocols. Each turnover is bittersweet. We have to say good-bye to someone we have relied on and invested in, and it is painful to see them go.! At the same time, we get to welcome someone new, and their fresh perspectives helps SPP to continually improve; we can’t get stale! Also, there is the satisfaction of seeing SPP alumni go on to new and valuable endeavors, and we take pride in supporting their ongoing careers and aspirations.

Choosing just a few students to highlight in this newsletter means not highlighting most, and that is hard to do. Thirty-eight Evergreen students have worked for SPP so far. All have brought something important and enduring to our programs. You may learn more about most of them on our staff page. We hope that the following articles will serve to illustrate the range and diversity of their character, expertise, and strengths. These are wonderful humans, and it is such a pleasure to celebrate them!

DOC staff, Evergreen staff, and student-staff pose following a successful frog release, October, 2015. Photo by Woodland Park Zoo staff.

Fracking Lecture at Coyote Ridge Corrections Center

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in Education Partners Prison Life Science

By Gretchen Graber of Institute for Applied Ecology.

Geologist Duane Horton talks about hydraulic fracking in a prison classroom at Coyote Ridge Corrections Center. Photo by Dorothy Trainer of Washington Corrections.

The Sustainability Lectures Series at Coyote Ridge Corrections Center in Washington State hosted the first speaker of the year on February 9th.  The subject of the lecture was an Introduction to Hydraulic Fracking, presented by geologist, Duane Horton. The subject of hydraulic fracking was requested by an inmate last year and we were happy to fill that request. The technology behind fracking was explained, as well as the geology behind what makes fracking possible. The advantages and disadvantages were very well described by Duane, showing why the process is controversial. As usual, many insightful comments were made by the audience members. The Sustainability lecture series is supported by the Sustainability in Prisons Project, relying on cooperative efforts of Washington State Department of Corrections, The Evergreen State College, and the Institute for Applied Ecology.

Prison Shares Earthworm Wealth with Northwest Trek Wildlife Park

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in Community Contributions Conservation Programs Education Outreach Partners Sustainable Operations

Text and photos by Sadie Gilliom, current SPP Western Pond Turtle Program Coordinator and previous Northwest Trek employee

The worm bin built for Northwest Trek with the team who created it.

Inside the three rows of razor wire, Monroe Correctional Complex houses more than incarcerated people. A partnership between an incarcerated individual and a correctional staff member initiated a waste reduction program that now is home for millions of thriving earthworms. Under the supervision of an officer, and with support from SPP-Evergreen, Nick Hackney—now a world renowned worm expert—and his team grew 200 worms into more than 10 million that process up to 40,000 lbs of food waste per month! The worm farm’s success has inspired addition of other programs; all are housed within a larger Sustainable Practices Lab. All the lab’s program have the benefit of coordination and oversite provided by Officer Jeff Swan.

This program has been around for over 6 years now, and the worm technicians have been spreading their worm wealth.  Most recently, the crew came built a heated outdoor worm bin for Northwest Trek Wildlife Park (Trek).  Trek plans to use the worm bin as a public engagement tool and will feed the worms with the scraps from the staff lunchroom.

Mr. Hackney shows Rachael Mueller how to use Trek’s new worm bin.

I had the privilege of coordinating the delivery and escorting a member of Trek’s conservation team, Rachael Mueller, up to Monroe for a tour and pick up of the finished product. I was present as two unlikely sustainability partners came together. It was a beautiful moment!

Mr. Juan shows how they use Bokashi bran to ferment meat before feeding it to the worms.

A few of the vermiculture techs helped load the bin into the truck.

Vermiculture Tech’s, Sadie Gilliom and Rachael Mueller pose at the end of the worm program tour.

The worm team at Monroe gave Trek a well-designed worm bin, shared their knowledge on how to maintain it and gave them a sample of black soldier fly larvae from a pilot program to see if they would want to use them as animal feed. Northwest Trek will be sharing the knowledge and story of the worm team’s impact on sustainability practices with hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. I would call that a great partnership!

Mr. Hackney and Rachael Mueller shake hands after the exchange

Thank you to Northwest Trek—especially the Conservation and Education Curator Jessica Moore—for being open to the idea. A big thank to the Monroe worm team and Officer Swan for donating their knowledge and a beautiful worm bin to Trek and their generations of visitors to come!

What do the students get from SPP lectures? Part One

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in Education Environmental Justice Evaluation Inmate Voices Partners Prison Life

Part One: Surveys Say…!

Text by Joslyn Rose Trivett, SPP Education and Outreach Manager
Figures by Liliana Caughman, SPP Science and Sustainability Lecture Series Coordinator

Brittany Gallagher receives a completed survey from a student at Stafford Creek Corrections Center. Photo by Shauna Bittle.

Every SPP Science and Sustainability Lecture since 2009 has included surveys about the program. Before and after each lecture, we ask students to fill out surveys and hand them back, and usually they do. Lucky for us, the current lecture series coordinator, Liliana Caughman, is also a whiz kid with data. Building on the work of Tiffany Webb and Brittany Gallagher, Liliana examined answers from 15,874 before and after surveys from SPP lectures (do you see how big that number is?? It blows me away!).

The data show patterns that are impressive and statistically defensible. Here is a summary:

  • Figure 1.

    The students are gaining environmental knowledge from the lectures; not a big surprise, and always nice to have confirmation!

 

  • As the years pass, students are learning more from our lectures (see Figure 1). We wonder, does this mean they are becoming better students, or that the lectures themselves have improved?

 

  • Figure 2.

    As Tiffany Webb found in 2014, students’ attitudes about the environment have been steadily increasing over time (see Figure 2). Many students do not become more positive about the environment as a result of a single lecture, but most started with such positive regard of environmental topics that no change is still a good thing! I see this as confirmation of what we’ve experienced: that there has been a positive culture shift within Washington State prisons.

 

  • Figure 3.

    Liliana devised 3 criteria to describe how engaging a lecture is. She assigned a score for how much a lecture 1. provided hands-on experiences 2. empowered students to be helpful to others who are important to them 3. built community and connections between people. She compared each lecture’s engagement score with how much environmental attitudes increased for the same lecture, and found a lovely correlation (Figure 3). These results suggest that Liliana’s engagement score is valuable measure of a lecture’s quality. More importantly, I think, is that the 3 criteria become guides for guest lecturers going forward: we will ask them to make presentations with hands-on activities, ideas on how to help others, and ways to connect students to people inside and outside the prison.

Last week, we took these survey results to the classroom at Stafford Creek Corrections Center. We asked the students for their input on how the program is offered, lecture topics, and the surveys themselves. They had so much valuable feedback that I will save it for Part Two of the story. Part Three will come when we take the same presentation and questions to Washington Corrections Center for Women in March!

To kick off discussion of the lecture series, Liliana Caughman described what the word sustainability means to her. Photo by Elijah Moloney.

 

Evergreen’s President for Climate Action

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in Environmental Justice Partners Sustainable Operations

Higher Education Backs We Are Still In Coalition

by Joslyn Rose Trivett, SPP Education & Outreach Manager

Late last week, Evergreen’s President George Bridges joined hundreds of his colleagues nationwide in signing the Letter from Higher Education Leaders on Climate Action to president-elect Trump and members of Congress. In the letter, they urge the government to support:

1. Participation in the Paris Agreement, with the resulting national carbon reduction and clean energy targets, to protect the health of our current communities and our future generations.

2. Research in our academic institutions and in federal agencies to ensure that our national climate, energy, and security policies are based on leading scientific and technical knowledge.

3. Investments in the low carbon economy as part of a resilient infrastructure to ensure the country can adapt to changing climate hazards. These investments will also help grow American jobs and businesses. (Full text available here.)

In his associated statement to the Evergreen community, George said:

Our study and practice of environmental stewardship are deeply linked to our commitment to addressing global concerns about the health and welfare of all communities. Evergreen also assumes that understanding and solving environmental challenges such as climate change or food security requires firm grounding in research in the natural and life sciences. Equally important is understanding the role that social, political and economic forces play in causing these challenges and remedying them fully and effectively. Advancing knowledge about the challenges is critical. (Full text shown below.)

At SPP, we are tremendously grateful that the college’s president has taken a stand on what may be the most confounding, complex, and critical challenge yet faced by humankind. Thank you, George!

Here is George serving the campus community at the 2nd annual Clams with George free lunch; he loves to treat us! Photo from Evergreen archives.

New Turtles and New Technicians!

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in Community Organizations Conservation Programs Ecological Restoration Education Nature inside Partners Prison Life

Text and photos by Western Pond Turtle Program Coordinator, Sadie Gilliom

Cedar Creek and Larch Corrections Centers programs just received new turtles last week!

New turtle at Larch Corrections Center

New turtle at Cedar Creek Corrections Center

These turtles just finished their treatments at PAWS wildlife rehabilitation center and the Oregon Zoo and moved on to the prisons to be cared for and monitored by the trained turtle technicians at the prisons.

Technician Eldridge holding a new turtle at Cedar Creek

Speaking of turtle technicians, we would like to welcome two new technicians who joined the Larch program at the same time the turtles arrived. A big salutations to Mr. Gonzalez and Mr. Larson!  They are getting some great training from current lead technician, Mr. Goff, before he moves on to try out the new dog program at Larch.

Two new turtle technicians at Larch posing with new turtles

Here’s to new turtles, new technicians, and to the future release of these turtles back into the wild!

Happy New Year!

What is an Aquatic Emergent Pre-Vegetated Mat?

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in Conservation Programs Ecological Restoration Partners

By Amanda Mintz, Emergent Vegetation Conservation Nursery Coordinator, and Master of Environmental Studies student

EVM tech at work

Technician Kent Dillard inspects the plants for evidence of pests. Photo by Fawn Harris.

In SPP’s new Emergent Vegetation Conservation Nursery at Stafford Creek Corrections Center, we are growing native wetland plants in coconut fiber mats for wetland restoration projects. The program relies on a team effort from incarcerated technicians, prison maintenance staff, Evergreen’s program coordinators and managers, Joint Base Lewis McChord, the Center for Natural Lands Management, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the United States Fish and Wildlife. All have done an amazing job meeting the challenges of the innovative program’s technical demands.

EVM meeting

DOC’s Jim Snider, technician Brian Bedilion, aquaponics expert Daniel Cherniske and SPP Program Manager Kelli Bush tour the nursery. Photo by Fawn Harris.

Coconut fiber mats, or “coir” mats, are commonly used in restoration for erosion control and suppression of weeds such as reed canarygrass. We are pre-planting them with wetland sedges and rushes, giving those beneficial plants a head start under nursery conditions. These plant types are known as “emergent” for their ability to grow through—emerge from—the water’s surface. Our hope is that the plants will be able to out-compete weeds and provide superior habitat for wildlife, such as the endangered Oregon spotted frog.

To grow the plants, we are using an aquaponics system. Two large fish tanks contain more than 100 koi, which produce waste that the plants use as nutrients. The water from the fish tanks circulates through the plant beds and then back to the fish tanks to pick up additional nutrients. The plants grow directly into the coir mats and do not need soil. By using an aquaponics system, we save water and reduce the need to weed or fertilize the plants.

We installed the first mats at Joint Base Lewis McChord in early November, and plan to have new mats ready in just a couple of months.

carl-and-mat

Conservation Nursery Manager Carl Elliott prepares to unroll a mat at JBLM. Photo by Amanda Mintz.

 

vegetated-mats-at-jblm

The first mats have been installed! Photo by Amanda Mintz.

New Turtles Arrived!

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in Conservation Programs Education Nature inside Partners Science

Text and photos by Sadie Gilliom, SPP Western Pond Turtle Program Coordinator

After a few months of waiting, Cedar Creek and Larch Corrections Centers have each received a new batch of turtles for their Western Pond Turtle Rehabilitation Programs!

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One particularly adorable turtle who recently arrived at Cedar Creek.

During this waiting period, the turtles received acute care for shell disease, which included antibiotics, antifungal medication and shell surgery.  The turtles that have arrived have completed treatments and just need watchful eyes and extra time to heal and wait out the winter months. The technicians provide all of this and more. They were excited to have new turtles to care for and prep for their eventual release back into the wild!

Mr. Hill, a Turtle Technician at Larch, getting ready to put a new turtle in her tank.

Mr. Hill, a Turtle Technician at Larch, getting ready to put a new turtle in her tank.

Mr. Goff, a Turtle Technician at Larch, getting ready to put a new turtle in her tank.

Mr. Goff, a Turtle Technician at Larch, getting ready to put a new turtle in her tank.

I delivered the turtles with the help of WDFW biologist, Emily Butler, to Cedar Creek on Monday November 1st and just this Monday  Larch received their turtles. We were honored to have Dr. Matt Brooks, a nutritionist from the Oregon Zoo, to help us transport the turtles to Larch.  This was Dr. Brooks’ first visit to the turtle program.  He is helping us to improve turtle health by increasing the nutritional value of their diets. We are so thankful for his help, as we are always looking for ways to improve the quality of care provided to these endangered turtles.  Thank you Dr. Brooks!

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Dr. Brooks and the Turtle Technicians posing with a bin full of mealworms. Dr. Brooks took a sample of mealworms back with him to test their nutritional value.

Turtle 4176’s Release

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in Conservation Programs Ecological Restoration Education Inmate Voices Partners

Co-Authored by Western Pond Turtle Technicians Taylour Eldridge and William Anglemyer

On Monday October 3rd, turtle 4176 was released from the Turtle Rehabilitation program at Cedar Creek Corrections Center . She had been there for quite some time—about 4 months, with a month long intermission at PAWS wildlife rehabilitation center in Lynnwood, WA—then back for another 4 months.  She had suffered from seizure-like episodes and for awhile it looked like she wouldn’t be deemed releasable back into the wild.  We had been worried, as people who have spent time in solitary confinement ourselves, that months in captivity would have a detrimental effect on her.  So it was a great relief to finally load her into a container and board a van destined to deliver her to the Lakewood Western Pond Turtle Refuge.

Turtle Technicians, Mr. Anglemyer and Mr. Eldridge, getting ready to release turtle 4176. Photo by Sadie Gilliom.

When we arrived, we were met by Washington State Fish and Wildlife Biologist, Emily Butler.  In addition to facilitating the turtle release, Ms. Butler showed us how the radio telemetry transmitters are attached to the turtles. We were then given a training on how to use the radio receivers and Ms. Butler took us to the area where the turtles lay their nests.  She had hidden two mock (plastic) turtles with transmitters attached to the shells.  We took turns using the radio receiver and the attached antenna to find the plastic turtles. We both found it quite difficult; it’s not even close to easy to use the radio telemetry equipment.  But we were eventually successful in locating them–truthfully, we received some visual hints. We have a new-found respect for anyone who has to attempt to find turtle nests in this manner.

Technician, Mr. Eldridge, learning to use the radio telemetry equipment. Photo by Sadie Gilliom.

Apart from the experience making us much more aware of the very difficult work of finding nests, it was a great learning experience which gave us a new found appreciation for the hands-on work that goes on in the field—a part of the program we’d never been privy to before. We learned of the plethora of other activities that the biologists do every day to help with the recovery of this amazing species.

We both feel good about being part of the SPP Western Pond Turtle Rehabilitation Program and we cannot think of a more worthwhile job—especially as people in an incarceration setting. We’re looking forward to helping the next batch of turtles get through their healing process and seeing them released back into the wild.  We hope the day will come soon when there are no more turtles that need help healing.  Hopefully, the future will bring multitudes of healthy turtles living in their natural habitat.