Orange County Coastkeeper

Orange County Coastkeeper’s WHALES (Watershed Heroes: Actions Linking Education to Stewardship) program will utilize ecological research to engage local youth from underserved communities in STEM fields and watershed stewardship. In collaboration with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, 500 students will participate in community science initiatives to monitor the health of the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve (UNBER) including water quality testing and fish population sampling. Students will evaluate water quality by testing for temperature, pH, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity. Students then process trawl samples by identifying, weighing, and measuring fish and ray species. Students are encouraged to think critically about the relationship between humans and ecosystem health and develop solutions for local environmental issues.

Through the WHALES field research program, 50 students will additionally complete group research projects including experimental design, data collection, data analysis, and science communication. We prioritize student autonomy in choosing research topics to re-engage students in their schoolwork by allowing them to study something meaningful to them. After the projects are developed in class, students visit the UNBER once a month for seven months to collect data. They analyze their data, create a research poster, and present their findings at a symposium at the end of the year. Previous projects include the relationship between water quality on biodiversity, riparian restoration techniques, and bird population surveys. Community science data will be added to CDFW’s publicly accessible long-term dataset and student project data will be uploaded to iNaturalist, GLOBE, and other relevant data-sharing platforms.