ADVERTISEMENT
Kids in the Creek: A Hands-On Education in Water Resources Management one of the original founders of Kids in the Creek; Amanda Newell, the education and outreach specialist at Cascadia Conservation District; and Julia Pinnix, the visitor services manager at the Leavenworth Fisheries Complex, tell us about the origins, development, and benefits of this important program. Hydro Leader: Please tell us about your backgrounds and how you came to be in your current positions. Rachel Little: I am the information and education coordinator for Benton Conservation District in southcentral Washington. I am a fishery biologist by training, but I also pursued graduate studies in education. I love to talk to people about fish. Conservation districts are a form of local government agency that are found throughout the nation. The mission of a conservation district is to encourage wise stewardship of natural resources, including water, soil, air, plants, wildlife, and fish. I believe that wise stewardship of rivers includes both the use of hydropower as a clean, reliable, renewable generation source and fisheries management. New technologies, including improvements in turbine design and construction, have led to demonstrated improvements in both juvenile fish passage survival and generation efficiency at Ice Harbor Dam on the lower Snake River. My first professional role after graduating from the University of Washington was at Leavenworth National Fish Hatchery, Washington, where the Kids in the Creek program started.
Students use models to measure the speed of the current.
K
32 | HYDRO LEADER | October 2021
Julia Pinnix: I arrived at Leavenworth in 2015 and started helping out with the Kids in the Creek program. My role was visitor services manager for the Leavenworth Fisheries Complex. The complex includes three fish hatcheries, which are located in Leavenworth, Entiat, and Winthrop, and the Mid-Columbia Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office, which is based in Leavenworth. My dad was a park ranger, and I was born when he was working at Mount hydroleadermagazine.com
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE USFWS.
ids in the Creek is a north-central Washington State educational program supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). The program consists of a 3‑day educational field experience at Entiat National Fish Hatchery that brings students from local high schools together to interact with local waterways; learn about the environment; and discover the ways in which the various interests on the river, including irrigation, navigation, transportation, wildlife and habitat management, and hydropower generation, must be balanced in water resources management. In this interview, Rachel Little, the information and education coordinator for Benton Conservation District in south-central Washington and
Amanda Newell: I’m the education and outreach specialist at Cascadia Conservation District and have been there 11 years as of this fall. I have a bachelor’s degree in communications from San Diego State University. Right after college, I worked in the travel industry for several years; this is my first real job in the conservation world. However, my mom managed a conservation district on the west side of Washington State for about 10 years while I was in high school and college, and I would work there on breaks, so I was exposed to the work of conservation districts at an early age. Having a biologist for a mother, I have always had a great love for the natural world.
