Tag: Sasha White

Dams in the McKenzie Watershed

Presenter(s): Nicole Long—Environmental Science and General Music

Faculty Mentor(s): Kathryn Lynch, Sasha White

Session: Prerecorded Poster Presentation

The McKenzie River is a river at work, and the primary tools for harnessing its power have been dams . The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) owns two of the dam systems on the McKenzie, including the Cougar Dam, the tallest dam in Oregon . The Eugene Water and Electricity Board (EWEB) owns the other two dam systems . I conducted my research through observational site visits to all four dam systems as well as other areas, including a salmon spawning channel maintained by EWEB . I also conducted two semi-structured interviews with a McKenzie River Guide and a staff member of the McKenzie Watershed Council . I supplemented my observations and interviews with literature research . I found that the dams on the McKenzie have cut salmonids off from over 20 miles of their ancestral spawning habitat . In addition to being fish passage barriers, the dams have reduced the McKenzie’s riparian zones due to the cessation of nutrient and debris flows . The large size of Cougar Dam’s reservoir decreases the river’s temperature, which disrupts salmon migration and spawning . Native plant and animal species such as cottonwood, alder, caddis fly, and roughskin newts are affected by the simplification of the river and its floodplain due to the dams . Human communities in the McKenzie Watershed are protected from floods by the dams, and they are a necessary reality . However, there is an ethical way to use the dams, such as renovating their infrastructure, and ways to mitigate their effects, such as restoring habitat downstream .

Restoring Connections: An Online Environmental Education Curriculum

Presenter(s): Katy Kuechle—Environmental Studies

Co-Presenter(s): Zoe O’Toole, Garrett Reagan, Ellie Townsley,

Faculty Mentor(s): Kathryn Lynch, Sasha White

Session 4: Environmental Leaders Program

The Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) is a collaborative, interdisciplinary service-learning program rooted in the University of Oregon Environmental Studies Program . ELP works with Mount Pisgah Arboretum and a cohort of kindergarten through fifth-grade students from Adams Elementary School . Our team mission was to develop an environmental education program for fifth-grade students that cultivated an understanding of the connections between people and their environment, specifically the Kalapuya’s relationship with oak savanna habitats and fire regimes, delivered through online lessons . The Confederated Tribes of the Grande Ronde provided feedback to our curriculum to accurately portray the history of the Kalapuya . Our curriculum was adapted into an online format to provide students with real-time lessons that deepened a sense of appreciation of the natural world within the local Willamette Valley through interactive activity sheets, journaling, and storytelling . Given the current pandemic and the lack of traditional classroom education, environmental education is more important than ever . Our curriculum helped create a sense of structure by establishing core routines and encouraging them to continue to interact with their environments in a safe and personally relevant way .