Today’s students are our city’s future decision makers and environmental stewards. To keep our rivers and streams clean and healthy in future generations, we’ll need a strong workforce for a variety of career opportunities working for clean rivers. This spring, Environmental Services’ Clean Rivers Education team and other staff have been teaming up to bring career awareness field trips to Portland students.

Benson High School students visit the Tabor Sewer job site to hear from Environmental Services' staff and construction contractors 

Clean Rivers educators visited Benson High School’s construction class to teach students about our wastewater system and sewer repair technologies like open trench, pipe bursting, and cured in place pipe (CIPP). Students then visited a job site in the Tabor Sewer project. There, they learned about the construction techniques employed at the site as well as apprenticeships and construction careers from contractors from Landis and Landis Construction, staff from Constructing Hope, and engineering and contracting staff from Environmental Services.

Mt Tabor Middle School students learn about invasive plants from Environmental Services Revegetation Program staff

After several Clean Rivers Education classroom presentations about native and invasive plants and other watershed health topics, Mt. Tabor Middle School students walked to Mt. Tabor Park and teamed up with Environmental Services’ Revegetation Program staff and Portland Parks Stewardship Coordinators and Botanic Specialists. Students worked alongside environmental professionals to pull invasive English ivy, practice native plant identification, and learn how ecologists are studying the role of earth worms in our natural areas. Revegetation Program staff also visited the classroom and shared about their jobs and personal career paths.

 Roosevelt High School students participate in a mock spill response activity at the Water Pollution Control Lab 

Roosevelt High School environmental science students visited Balch Creek Park in Lower Macleay Park to learn alongside Environmental Services’ staff about watershed health monitoring and macroinvertebrates as biological indicators of water quality. Students practiced taking measurements of streambank conditions and used meters to test water quality parameters such as dissolved oxygen and pH. They also learned about jobs and equipment related to watershed health monitoring. The next day, students visited our Water Pollution Control Lab and practiced collecting water quality samples, used GIS maps to track a mock spill, and learned about careers related to spill protection and citizen response. Environmental Services staff also visited classes to share about their jobs and personal career paths.

A huge thank you to all the staff, students and teachers who participated in these career education activities!