By Kat Hall

The Lands Council’s first official winter as a SnowSchool was a great success! A project of the Winter Wildlands Alliance (WWA), SnowSchool is a K-12 educational program that helps connect youth across the country to snow science and winter recreation. We offered our “Snow Science and Water Resources in a Changing Climate” unit at Mt. Spokane State Park to roughly 250 students from the following schools: Sprague HS, Spokane Valley Tech, Newport HS, OnTrack Academy, Central Valley HS, Pratt Academy, University HS, Mica Peak HS, Kootenai Bridge Academy, The Community School, and Rogers HS. We’re already looking forward to next winter’s SnowSchool, where we’ll be setting up snowpack dust experimental plots and collecting snowpack depth and SWE data to submit to the NASA/Community Snow Observations project!

TLC’s work to restore degraded stream habitats in the Greater Spokane River Watershed has continued, even in the midst of navigating our temporary “new normal” existence in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. TLC staff, interns, and volunteers took the place of our primary, formidable tree planting force—our students—and got the job done safely by meeting on-site and maintaining adequate social distancing (6’) while together. We potted 2,000 seedlings at our Spokane Valley nursery, planted 1,000 willow stakes at our Spangle Creek site, and added over 300 potted seedlings to Spangle Creek and Rattlers Run Creek. We’re also working with Spokane County to complete a riparian restoration and beaver dam analog (BDA) project along Dartford Creek, in the Little Spokane River watershed. Rest assured that we’ve been doing everything we can to stay safe while simultaneously restoring and enhancing the health of our streams and creeks. Many thanks to all those who have helped us!

*TLC interns and volunteers planting at Dartford Creek*