Community Events

2020 Community Events

The Clallam MRC educational outreach plan for 2019-20 included several public events and outreach to elementary school students. The Clallam MRC planned to staff a booth at the Celebration of Science and Technology event in March, the Maritime Festival in June, and the Dungeness River Festival in September. Clallam MRC also planned to co-host the Ocean Science program in Clallam Bay with the Olympia Coast National Marine Sanctuary.  All of these events were cancelled because of Covid-19.

The Clallam MRC adapted to the Covid-19 restrictions and hosted or co-hosted two public online events - the Intern Celebration (see Internship tab) and a webinar about  SoundIQ.  In addition, through the lunchbox program at the Boys & Girls Club in Port Angeles and Sequim the Clallam MRC reached out to 275 students.  

Sound IQ Webinar

On August 27th Clallam MRC in partnership with NWSC hosted a webinar about Sound IQ, a georeferenced database, managed by NWSC’s GIS Specialist Suzanne Shull. Suzanne showed how to access the environmental data in Sound IQ and how it can be used to support regulatory oversight of nearshore development and Shoreline Master Plan updates. The audience included planners from Clallam County, City of Sequim, and City of Port Angeles. Other participants included city engineers, Clallam County Commissioner, and MRC members.

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Educational Outreach to Boys & Girls Clubs

Similar to previous years Clallam MRC had planned to do educational outreach to K-12 students, but then Covid-19 hit and everything was cancelled. Lamenting about this problem to Rebecca Paradis from the Lower Elwha Tribe she suggested connecting with the Boys & Girls Club lunchbox program.  The lunchbox program turned out to be an excellent distribution system to reach K-12 students.

In partnership with SeaDoc Society the Clallam MRC compiled 275 educational outreach packages focused on the book Explore the Salish Sea. The packages include the book (donated by SeaDoc Society), a coloring book, crayons, stickers and fake tattoos and a letter encouraging the students to sign up to be a junior SeaDoc and to submit a story and drawing to the Clallam MRC.  In the week of August 17^th 200 packages were handed out to students through the Port Angeles Club and another 75 to students through the Sequim Club.

2019 Dungeness River Festival

At the 2019 festival the Clallam MRC booth was one of 20 booths staffed by local, state, federal, tribal and nonprofit entities active on the North Olympic Peninsula. The booths offered interactive nature exhibits and activities, as well as exhibits providing information on numerous environmental topics from the impacts of failing septic systems to wildlife living in the Olympic National Park. The display at Clallam MRC’s booth focused on how to catch more crabs by using proper crabbing techniques and thereby reduce the number of lost crab pots. For the educational outreach to the students the MRC summer intern had made a game consisting of a wheel with nine slots; six of these slots displayed proper crabbing techniques and three incorrect techniques. Each student would spin the wheel once and if the wheel landed on a proper technique the student was awarded a “catch more crab” sticker. The festival reached about 1,400 festival participants; approximately 950 3-5 grade school students enjoyed the festival along with 450 teachers, chaperons and other residents. The members thought the game went pretty well, however they decided to change the rules and give everyone a sticker as long as the losers promised never to do the bad practice again.

The festival was featured in Sequim Gazette https://www.sequimgazette.com/life/river-festival-returns-for-21st-year/ and in Peninsula Daily https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/entertainment/river-festival-returnsfor-21st-year/ and https://www.peninsuladailynews.com/entertainment/river-festival-focuses-on-health-of-dungeness/. The festival was also featured on the Dungeness Audubon River Center website and blog http://dungenessrivercenter.org/dungeness-river-festival.

2019 Ocean Science at Clallam Bay

On June 4th Clallam MRC partnered with the Olympia Coast National Marine Sanctuary and Clallam Bay School District to teach a one-day field and classroom event at Slip Point in Clallam Bay. Approximately 20-25 grade school students participated in the program exploring the intertidal during a super low tide. The Clallam MRC provided a kelp guide used by the students to identify the most common seaweeds. After the fieldtrip the students went to the school and played a food web game and did an ocean acidification experiment with vinegar and chalk under the supervision of Sanctuary staff. The Clallam MRC provided a kelp guide used by the students to identify the most common seaweeds.

2019 Participate in the State Launched MyCoast

You can help document the changing coast in Clallam County by using  MyCoast  to document tides, storm damage, marine debris, creosote pilings and much more. Take a picture using the MyCoast mobile app or submit it via your browser when you get back to your computer.  The MyCoast servers fetch the background data such as tides and weather to add context to your picture. State and municipal employees, planners, developers, business owners, and others can use your data to make better decisions.

You can take pictures anywhere and upload them in MyCoast, but Clallam MRC has selected two beaches to focus the effort. The first beach is the Three Crabs restoration site and the second beach is Hollywood Beach in Port Angeles. 

Find the location shown in the picture and include the objects in the circles.