Water Connects Us All: How the USFWS Uses a Fishing and Aquatic Education Trailer to Bring Pacific Northwest Waterscapes to Community Outreach Events
Start Date
4-4-2023 2:10 PM
End Date
4-4-2023 2:19 PM
Abstract
When you can't bring students or community members to the water for educational experiences, how can you bring aquatic species and habitats to them?
In 2019, a team of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service information and education specialists came together with $25,000 and a plan: create a mobile, fishing and aquatic education trailer that could be shared across multiple offices, easily transported to on- or off-site events, contain a series of hands-on, scalable, and kinetic activities focused around Pacific Northwest riparian zones, rivers and streams, and native aquatic species. And it had to look visually captivating, whether it was on the road or parked.
They had no idea what was coming next.
This presentation will quickly recap two plus years of effort undertaken to bring the 'fishing/aquatic education' trailer from concept to creative design to communities--including pandemic-induced stops and starts, and share some valuable lessons learned and project dos and don’ts. We hope our presentation will provide inspiration—and a precautionary tale or two--for those interested in considering a similar project now or in the future. The FWS team will also share how the trailer has been used across Oregon and Washington in 2022--and forward into the future--in both urban and rural settings once pandemic safety precautions were eased and supporting in-person community outreach events was again possible.
Subjects
Environmental education, Fisheries, Wildlife biology
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/40484
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.
Water Connects Us All: How the USFWS Uses a Fishing and Aquatic Education Trailer to Bring Pacific Northwest Waterscapes to Community Outreach Events
When you can't bring students or community members to the water for educational experiences, how can you bring aquatic species and habitats to them?
In 2019, a team of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service information and education specialists came together with $25,000 and a plan: create a mobile, fishing and aquatic education trailer that could be shared across multiple offices, easily transported to on- or off-site events, contain a series of hands-on, scalable, and kinetic activities focused around Pacific Northwest riparian zones, rivers and streams, and native aquatic species. And it had to look visually captivating, whether it was on the road or parked.
They had no idea what was coming next.
This presentation will quickly recap two plus years of effort undertaken to bring the 'fishing/aquatic education' trailer from concept to creative design to communities--including pandemic-induced stops and starts, and share some valuable lessons learned and project dos and don’ts. We hope our presentation will provide inspiration—and a precautionary tale or two--for those interested in considering a similar project now or in the future. The FWS team will also share how the trailer has been used across Oregon and Washington in 2022--and forward into the future--in both urban and rural settings once pandemic safety precautions were eased and supporting in-person community outreach events was again possible.