PRBO offers an award-winning watershed education program called Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed (STRAW). The STRAW Project started in 1992 as the Shrimp Club in Laurette Rogers’ 4th grade classroom. The students were inspired to help the endangered California Freshwater Shrimp. By working with ranchers and professional restoration designers they planted native willows along Stemple Creek and began to restore the shrimp's riparian (streamside) habitat.
Today, the STRAW Project coordinates and sustains a network of teachers, students, restoration specialists and other community members to plan and implement watershed studies and restoration projects in Marin, Sonoma, Solano and Napa counties. Its goals are to empower students, support teachers, restore the environment, and reconnect communities.
Click here to listen to a January 19, 2012 KWMR podcast about STRAW's new climate-smart restoration techniques.
We provide teachers and students with the scientific, educational and technical resources to prepare them for hands-on, outdoor watershed studies, including ecological restoration of riparian and wetland habitats. Each year over 3,000 students participate in nearly 40 restoration work days, planting almost 2,500 native plants
(STRAW Transition from The Bay Institute)
Click the links below for more information about the different aspects of STRAW.
Watershed Restoration
“Beyond conservation, beyond preservation, restoration is the new frontier that will reverse environmental decline and mankind’s isolation from nature.” ~David Donnenfield
NEW! Check out PRBO's new handout on riparian restoration: Restoration Works.
 |
What is a watershed?
A watershed is an area of land where all of the precipitation that falls there drains to one main body of water. Click the following links to learn more about watersheds and for more information about the watersheds of Marin County and Napa County.
|
 |
Why restore?
Many human activities have significantly altered the health of our ecosystems and continue to threaten our future. STRAW empowers the community to reverse these adverse effects by facilitating professionally designed riparian and wetland restoration projects in the North Bay.
Back to top
|
|
Why streams and wetlands?
Riparian and wetland habitats are critical for many wildlife species and ecosystem functions. Students work with us to restore native vegetation on creek banks and wetland transition zones, which stabilize eroding banks and restore functionality to important habitats for threatened and endangered animal species. Riparian areas, in particular, are critical wildlife corridors, connecting different habitat types in the watershed. These restoration projects contribute to the long-term protection and improvement of water and biological quality of streams, aquifers, and terrestrial resources of our watersheds in the North Bay.
|
 |
Who do we work with?
The STRAW Project engages a diverse network of partners and stakeholders to complete this work. We strive to include representative stakeholders who will affect or be affected by our restoration projects. Our partners include: schools; private landowners; public land management agencies; city municipalities; county departments of public works and flood control; city, county, regional and national parks services; resource conservation districts; non-profit conservation and preservation organizations; private restoration design firms; and other restoration specialists.
Back to top
|
|
|
Maintenance and Monitoring
In addition to the high quality of work done by the students during their restoration workday, the success of each restoration depends on site maintenance. Each site is maintained by STRAW staff, interns, volunteers and students when possible for three summers following its planting date. Though these native plants are well adapted to each site, being transplanted from their nursery pot into the ground causes stress. The two main plant establishment tasks of summer maintenance, weed control and irrigation, help ease these young plants into their historic habitat niche and increase their chance of long-term survival.
|
 |
Monitoring is essential to assess each project’s success, improve our planning for future projects, and advance the understanding of effective restoration techniques throughout the North Bay. Plant and bird monitoring is conducted after the initial restoration work is done to assess short and long-term success. STRAW staff and interns provide monitoring by assessing plant establishment at each site. We use this data to inform future design by modifying our planting palette for each watershed based on which of the historically appropriate species thrive there. For long-term validation monitoring, PRBO staff conduct bird surveys at project sites. The results from 2001 monitoring show that as restored sites mature, the number of breeding songbird species in the habitat increases. Our project partners at University of California Cooperative Extension provide another type of long-term validation monitoring, including channel stability assessment, water quality monitoring, and plant species composition monitoring. |
Back to top
Education
STRAW provides teachers with resources, materials, and technical support to integrate watershed content into their classroom. Environmental science education is delivered in coordination with other school science curriculum throughout the school year. STRAW maintains long-term relationships with teachers, many of whom return year after year. The STRAW project operates under project-based, inquiry-based and place-based learning models.
Click here for some guidelines on project-based learning or PBL. For additional school programs offered by PRBO click here.
 |
Teacher Professional Development
Teachers who participate in the STRAW Project are invited to annual teacher professional development events including two Network Dinners and a three-day teacher training institute in August, called Watershed Week. This ongoing professional development program for teachers provides training in restoration methodology, investigative watershed studies, and project-oriented pedagogy, building teacher proficiency to deliver meaningful watershed-based experiences to their students.
Back to top
|
 |
STRAW Faculty
The STRAW Faculty formed in August 2007 to support classroom teachers and students in their studies of the environment and their participation in the STRAW Project. The STRAW Faculty is composed of retired teachers and other community members who serve as classroom resources. In addition to preparing students for their specific creek or wetlands restoration, STRAW Faculty partner with teachers, upon request, to teach specific lessons related to the students’ environmental studies. Our teachers may also request consultation with the Faculty to develop ideas for their environmental science curriculum.
Click here for descriptions of current lessons being offered and click here to see how they meet CA State Teaching Standards for grade levels K-6th and 7-12th.
|
 |
STRAW Virtual Summit
The STRAW Virtual Summit is a window into the restoration work and watershed science being done in the classrooms of teachers in the STRAW network.
STRAW Virtual Summit 2011
STRAW Virtual Summit 2012
Back to top
|
 |
Youth Watershed Challenge Project
The Youth Watershed Challenge Project (YWCP) provides opportunities for high school students to learn about the ecology of the Bay and its watershed, explore careers in science, and initiate actions in the community that promote environmental conservation. The YWCP also partners with teachers to provide support in the classroom and professional development opportunities.
The Challenge Project offers a four-week summer program for San Francisco high school students which takes place at the Farallones Marine Sanctuary classroom on the Bay. From this experience, students develop their own “challenge” project that promotes conservation in the community or their school. Challenge Project staff serve as mentors to support the students’ actions throughout the year.
Click HERE for more information.
|
Back to top
Documentary
A Simple Question Trailer from Trent Boeschen on Vimeo. For more information on the award-winning documentary A Simple Question: The Story of STRAW click the banner above.
Back to top
Resources
This page is under construction, please check back soon for updated information!
Back to top
Contact
For more information on the STRAW Project and how to get involved, please contact:
Laurette Rogers
STRAW Program Director, Outreach and Education Group
lrogers@prbo.org
707-781-2555 ext. 358
Back to top
