Friends Notes

By Wayne Huseby

It all started with a simple email in late February from my good friend Vicki Stowe asking if our group, the Fidalgo Bay Aquatic Reserve Citizen Stewardship Committee (FBARCSC), would consider hosting a “STEM Sampler” workshop. Vicki is a wife, mother, and a passionate champion for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education in our local schools. Besides leading efforts to raise thousands of dollars for STEM programs, Vicki volunteers her time to organize and manage STEM activities for our kids. One of those programs is called “STEM Sampler”. The goal of the program is to engage each Middle School student in a hands-on, workshop oriented activity that exposes them to STEM subjects that they would otherwise not have time for in their regular school schedule. The hope is to stimulate some students to consider taking STEM courses that could lead to a rewarding and fulfilling career.

In late March, Vicki, Pete Haase (FBARCSC President), and I met for coffee to discuss a possible workshop. We decided that engaging students in one of our citizen science-based forage fish surveys (surf smelt eggs) would be a perfect fit. It would demonstrating how STEM can lead to new knowledge about a very important species of our marine ecosystems. One of the primary missions of the FBARCSC is to engage the community and provide educational programs about the Fidalgo Bay Aquatic Reserve (FBAR). We had no idea how we were going to do it, but agreed to host a workshop in mid-June.

What were we thinking! These were Middle Schoolers!

Vicki is a very persuasive woman.

Once we realized what we had done, Pete and I solicited the assistance of Erica Bleke, Aquatic Reserves Program, Washington Department of Natural Resources, to help us plan and organize how we would actually pull off the workshop. Erica had been a teacher so she had some experience working with kids, especially in a field environment. Thank goodness for that! Over the next several weeks, Pete, Erica, and I met a few times to work out a plan knowing full well that things would probably not go as planned. They didn’t!

This year’s STEM Sampler , the third annual, had 23 workshops for students to choose from over the two day event. Each “workshop location” conducted four (4) workshops, two workshops each day for two days, each lasting approximately two hours, one in the morning and one in the early afternoon. For “offsite” workshops like ours, students were bused to/from the Middle School. I must admit, it was a terrifying sight when that first busload of students arrived at the Fidalgo Bay Resort and we all realized it was “showtime”! We survived.

Despite some horrendous mid-June weather, our team of experienced volunteers did a fabulous job of explaining the what, how, and why of a forage fish surveys. Fortunately, the target, surf smelt eggs, were fairly abundant during our surveys so most students stayed engaged (not all!). The highlight for many students was putting their respective team’s sample of eggs under a microscope which was displayed on a large TV screen. The “oohs and aahs” from the students when they realized that some of the eggs actually had little embryonic fish inside of them with tiny eyeballs was telling! For many, it was the first time they had ever seen something like that. Discovering nature can be an exciting thing!

Although it was a lot of work to plan and organize the workshop, the expectation is that FBARCSC will likely be persuaded to participate again next year. As I said, Vicki is very persuasive. Besides, we can apply lessons learned and make it even better next year! The kids we had on the beach those two days back in June will soon be entering into adulthood. Having an opportunity to work with them and possibly influence a career choice is extremely rewarding. Even if none of them ever pursues a STEM career, our hope is that they all came away with a greater appreciation of our natural world.

Hosting a successful STEM Sampler would not have been possible without our dedicated volunteers. Following are some thoughts that a couple of them shared with me about their experiences:

“What was most impressive to me about the STEM Sampler was the level of involvement and community collaboration that went on in order to provide this unique opportunity. From my perspective, it is vital to get community members, especially local students, into Fidalgo Bay Aquatic Reserve to learn about what the Reserve is and why its protection is critical to the overall health of the Salish Sea."
There are only eight Aquatic Reserves in the entire state of Washington and it’s a pretty fantastic thing for Anacortes students to have one in their backyard. To see students realize that their local beaches are not just a great place to walk, but are actually teeming with life that supports the greater Salish Sea ecosystem was a great thing to be a part of.
We’re more powerful together when we work as a team in order to raise awareness of our local resources and provide opportunities to get out to enjoy them. It was inspiring to see so many different agencies, non-profits, and organizations come together to help provide this type of hands-on, minds-on science opportunity for local students and I’m looking forward to doing my part to make sure it happens more often!” – Erica Bleke, Aquatic Reserves Program, Washington Department of Natural Resources

“The second day of the STEM Forage Fish program shaped up to be a beautiful morning, especially after a week of early-summer rain and wind. I volunteered for the program only two weeks into my new job, and had no idea what to expect. I checked in and was quickly introduced to the rest of the volunteers. By the end of the day, I was gobsmacked by the variety of organizations that were represented in the room. It began to dawn on me how replete my new home is with kind, collaborative, science-minded people. I worked with two different groups of kids, the first one was a very rambunctious group of younger boys, and the second had some kind and unassuming older girls. By the end of each of their programs, both groups were excited and proud to see the smelt eggs they had collected up on the screen! One boy liked it so much that he actually came back a second day”. - Keighley Lane, Intern, Pacific Biodiversity Institute

“As I had not done field work in a couple of years, assisting with the STEM workshop was very enlightening. It was an opportunity for me to learn, as well as pass along any knowledge that I might have to potential budding ecologists. The day was unfortunately, a bit blustery and cold, but conditions were ripe for learning. Each team was shown how to create a transect, collect samples, clean those samples, and then process the samples under a microscope. The most fascinating part was ‘seeing’ what had been collected, using the microscope. I think the science of what we were doing did not become real until the students were given the opportunity to view what was collected in this fashion. I believe we were all fascinated when we detected the various species by seeing ‘eyes’ in egg sacs. Various oohs and ahhs from the audience made this apparent. Though that could have been coming from the adults!

All in all, I believe the students had a good time this day. I think had the day been a bit warmer and not as rainy, they may have been a bit more engaged. I confess to being cold and a little distracted myself. However, I am extremely grateful for all the collected experts from this area that had far more knowledge than I did, as I personally, learned a lot. I’m happy that I was able to attend and assist in any way that I could." - Heather Conkerton, Intern, Pacific Biodiversity Institute

The FBARCSC is a small group making a big difference in our community and region. We are seeking new committee members who are interested in ways to promote, protect and restore the Fidalgo Bay Aquatic Reserve.It is not necessary to have a marine environmental background, only a strong desire for preserving the health of our fragile marine ecosystems. There are a many ways you can participate, be it citizen science, public outreach, or regulatory watchdog. Whatever your skills or interests, if stewardship of our marine environment is important to you, we would like to talk. For more information, contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit us at our website - Puget Sound Aquatic Reserves

The project planning team for our annual lecture series is hard at work figuring out the details for the 2018 lectures! This includes the all-important task of selecting four exceptional speakers to present during the upcoming season. The team has had several planning meetings already, even though the series doesn’t start until January 2018.

We’re in the process of whittling down a starting list of 49 candidate topics to the final 4. Even though sorting through that many options can seem daunting, Matt Kerschbaum makes the process fun. They started with 49 sheets of paper on the table and thoughtful discussion immediately removed 24 leaving a shorter list of 25 for the second cut round. Each team member was given 12 pennies to place on the remaining 25 sheets of paper to select their top 12. This enabled the group to shave the list to 13 candidates. 

Team members (l – r) Sue Ehler, Matt Kerschbaum, Barbara Lechner, and Gina Johnson

Now the more formal voting process, involving lists and Excel spreadsheets, will sort the list to identify the top candidates. At that point the team will get busy contacting and confirming potential speakers. We hope to have that done by early October and have the four topics ready to start the next phase of work – advertising the lectures that will be presented on the dates listed below at the NW Educational Services District Building, 1601 R Avenue, Anacortes.

2018 Lecture Schedule: Friday evenings on January 19th, February 16th, March 16th, and April 20.

Mark your calendar and we’ll have the coffee and cookies ready when you get there.

Plastic waste polluting or marine environments is a major issue that is damaging habitat and wildlife in Skagit County and around the world.  One of the sources, monofilament fishing line, is a focus area that CVP volunteers are helping to address.  Recycling tubes such as the one shown installed at Heart Lake in Anacortes have been placed at 22 popular fishing locations in our area from Bowman Bay to the Marblemount Fish Hatchery.

The project started by the Skagit Beach Watcher volunteer, Don Coleman, is being carried forward under the leadership of CVP volunteers Dick Kent and Glenda Alm – thanks for taking over the lead!  Friends continues to provide funding to covers costs of the hardware and labeling of the equipment.

A team of CVP volunteers has signed up to be a steward for each of the installation sites to empty and properly recycle the monofilament line deposited in the tubes.  Unfortunately, we often find other garbage in them that has to be sorted out from the plastic waste.  But at least the fishing line and other garbage aren’t being tossed into our lakes and saltwater estuaries!

An Afternoon to Remember -  by Pete Haase

Friday June 2, 2017 was an afternoon many of us will remember for a long time.  Nineteen youngsters and some parents from the mixed 1 – 2 – 3 grade class taught by Abigail Ross at Anacortes Island View Elementary hopped out of a bus at 12:30 at the Fidalgo Bay Resort on a promise that they could go do surveys for surf smelt eggs.  A dozen of us big guy volunteers stood there as ready as we felt possible, wondering what we were in for.

This story starts in January.  Jack Middleton and I were up at the Bald Eagle Festival in Rockport on a Saturday doing a presentation and an outside demonstration about Forage Fish, the kind of thing that’s part of our Fidalgo Bay Aquatic Reserve Citizen Stewardship Committee (FBARCSC) education mission.  A lady leaned over the edge of the deck at the Interpretive Center there and asked – “Say, can you do that for a class of kids?”  Jack jumps right up and says – “Sure.  That is a great idea!”   The lady was Abigail.

Coincidently, also in about January, Glen Alexander, an educator at the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Bayview, had asked Barbara Lechner and Michelle Marquardt if they could expand their Trail Tales Forage Fish Interpretive station into a program for young children.  They did that with great success.  Somehow, also coincidently, that led to them sharing their interpretive station and activities with the Before School program at ... Island View Elementary School ... again with great success.  Now we HAD to produce.  

With a lot of help and creative ideas, we made some simplified field sheets about surf smelt surveying and a “script” for the big guys to follow as they led the little ones on the beach.  Our FBARCSC was able to buy many clipboards, print all the sheets and instructions, and supply all the materials needed; like gravel scoopers, collection bags, sample jars, rulers and GPS units.  Our local Marine Resources Committee (MRC) let us borrow their complete Forage Fish Survey equipment kit as did the Whatcom (MRC.)  With the set we have for FBARCSC that made three complete stations we could operate and keep the kids well occupied.

Padilla Bay donated their microscope with camera and display screen, with an operator, and a local volunteer citizen did the same.  Many folks from our usual Forage Fish survey teams and also from recent Salish Sea Stewards classes came to help.  The Samish Indian Nation let us use the clubhouse, facilities, and the beach on the shore of Fidalgo Bay.

The teacher had the kids divided into 5 groups of 4 and each had a name – like the “Fun Forage Fish Finders” and “Soaring Skagits.”  We had two of our volunteers and a parent with each group!

A few days prior, Michelle and Barbara took their fun forage fish program into the classroom and gave the kids a great understanding of surf smelt and good beaches and why they are important – much of which they had already studied.  When they “hit the beach” they knew what they needed to do.

It was quite a show.  Each group headed for a spot on the beach where they thought it might be good for surf smelt to have spawned.  The kids did as much of the work as they could.  They stretched out a big yellow measuring tape and found out how many steps they needed to measure 33 and 50 feet – distances needed to do a survey.  Then they began digging and looking in the sand and gravel and collected a nice bag of sample material from a 100 ft “transect.”  Most of the groups were able to find eggs in the gravel, right at their spot, with their eyes and even better with a hand-lens.  One group found a HUGE swath!  On their field sheet they documented the GPS location of their sample site, the amount of shading, the type of substrate, and the distance from the high tide line to their transect line – all data collected during a normal survey.

They were so excited to have a bag of gravel with some eggs in there.  Back they came and rinsed the gravel in sieves to separate the eggs and small particles and then ran the results through the fun “Blue Bowl” to better isolate the eggs into a sample jar.  Now they could see so many!  Then they took their sample inside to the microscope for a lot of ooohing and ahhhing as they saw their “finds” up close and in various stages of development. Finally they took the eggs back to the beach and did their best to get them back into a place where some will survive and hatch.

A young fellow in my group said – “The BEST day ever!”  Most of us felt like that too at the time.

Friends of Skagit Beaches volunteers, Barbara Lechner and Michelle Marquardt, have developed a very popular interactive forage fish interpretive station and now expanded that into a program for Junior Ecologists (ages 5 – 9).  Through the use of slides, props and participation, children have a fun experience learning about forage fish - what forage fish are, why forage fish are so important, who eats forage fish, and what makes a healthy beach for Surf Smelt egg spawning.  The program is concluded with a forage fish song sing-a-long and coloring pages reinforcing the information. This type of interactive learning helps students develop a personal connection to our marine environment, which we believe helps to foster a life-long commitment to environmental stewardship.

On May 31, the program was presented to a class at Island View Elementary to prepare them to search for surf smelt eggs on the beach (see more about this in the article below.)

And it’s not just for kids . . . Throughout the summer and early fall the Forage Fish Interpretation station will be going out on the beach during forage fish egg surveys (weather permitting).  Watch for us out on the shores of Fidalgo Bay and Bowman Bay.

Thanks to Barbara and Michelle for your hard work and creative energy in making this program shine!