This summer we have been involved on two levels with the Monterey Bay Aquarium programs in science and conservation. Our youngest daughter went to their Young Women in Science camp, and had a blast kayaking, boogie boarding, and scuba diving, as well as meeting women scientists, monitoring sand crabs, and making toys for the aquarium’s otters. During the next school year she’ll also be participating in the aquarium’s Student Oceanography Club, learning more about local environmental issues and tackling a habitat restoration project with two or three friends.
Today we’ll be hosting the aquarium’s WATCH (Watsonville Area Teens Conserving Habitats) participants on their field trip day to local farms. This group is focused on the Pajaro River Watershed and their farm trip makes the connection between farmers’ land stewardship and local water quality issues. The program leaders are science teachers from the local High Schools and staff from the aquarium, and they bring a lot of positive energy and knowledge to the field, so it’s a fun tour on our part as well.
This is the fourth year we’re participating in the WATCH field trip. We’ll explore our hedgerows, riparian corridor, water usage, contour planting, cover cropping, drip irrigation, and some of the interesting experiments and field trials we have engaged in during our time here on the farm. If it’s like past WATCH tours, the high school students will ask incisive questions and help us out with a farm chore while they’re here. Because they have been working together for three weeks before they even get here, these students tend to be engaged and respectful. Hopefully when they leave they will have a better sense of how a farm works, what the considerations are in using resources like soil and water, and how we all have an effect on the health of the Monterey Bay and its creatures.
This is the fourth year we’re participating in the WATCH field trip. We’ll explore our hedgerows, riparian corridor, water usage, contour planting, cover cropping, drip irrigation, and some of the interesting experiments and field trials we have engaged in during our time here on the farm. If it’s like past WATCH tours, the high school students will ask incisive questions and help us out with a farm chore while they’re here. Because they have been working together for three weeks before they even get here, these students tend to be engaged and respectful. Hopefully when they leave they will have a better sense of how a farm works, what the considerations are in using resources like soil and water, and how we all have an effect on the health of the Monterey Bay and its creatures.
After their three week summer program learning scientific skills like observation, exploration, data collection, and communication, the students are expected to continue tackling environmental projects during the school year and can take courses in Marine Biology and environmental economics and policy. Programs like these are really vital for our youth to make the important connections between food production, policy, economics, and environment. It could be key to their own health and the health of our communities in the coming decades.
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