Salmon Expeditions Go Virtual!

Most autumns, SYRCL’s River Education flagship program leads “Salmon Float and Hiking Expeditions” along the Lower Yuba River. On these expeditions, youth and community members witness endangered Chinook salmon returning to their ancestral spawning habitat along the Lower Yuba River, and learn about the role salmon play as a keystone species within the watershed. This phenomenon also serves as the learning foundation for highlighting many of the other historical, environmental, and socioecological dynamics integral to the future protection of our Yuba watershed.

This year, however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need to support remote learning for K-12 students, SYRCL committed to developing creative new ways to deliver this program, and ensure students and community members still have the opportunity to connect with this year’s fall Chinook salmon run, and this unique section of the Yuba River.

Therefore, SYRCL (thanks to generous funding provided by Yuba Water Agency) is excited to announce that this year’s Salmon Expeditions are going virtual! These past few weeks, we’ve been composing scripts and working with a film team to provide seven “Virtual Yuba Salmon Adventures” for students in the Yuba watershed and beyond! Each adventure, a ten minute episode, gives our adventurers a the chance to join us in exploring:

History of the lower Yuba
The Story of the lower Yuba salmon
How to protect and restore salmon habitat
How to do your own water quality monitoring in your backyard creek or stream

Our “Virtual Yuba Salmon Adventures” are also designed to:

Support science education at home ! All the episodes can come as a packaged & standards-aligned unit, with accompanying indoor and outdoor science activities for each episode!
Serve as pre-expedition lessons for students who participate in future float or hiking expeditions.
Be promoted to educators throughout Sacramento, San Francisco and the Central Valley region, and further inspiring Yuba watershed stewardship from the Sierras to the sea.

When you can join us on our “Virtual Yuba Salmon Adventures?”

Our goal is to have these episodes, and their aligned activities, available on our website by October 20, 2020. Once available, you can register to receive the package of all seven episodes and the resource guide through our website.

While this year’s Salmon Expeditions are certainly not what we envisioned, we’re grateful for the unexpected opportunity to share the importance of Yuba salmon habitat conservation and restoration with new students across the region. And, actually are very excited for the reach this new format offers our community.