Program History
The Beginning
The program began in 2008 at Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area, a unit of the National Park Service, as the park’s main education program for schools located around the lake. Then Education Specialist, Janice Elvidge, conducted in-the-field programs during spring 2008 with seven schools and 289 3rd-12th grade students from around Lake Roosevelt.
It quickly became apparent that the park would never have the ability to have a park ranger personally serve every single student in every grade every year. So, training teachers became the program’s main focus, and thus, the expansion idea began. By expanding the program to a network of formal and informal educators throughout the Columbia River Watershed, we increased the expertise base, potential training opportunities, and increased the number of people working together to ensure program success.
During the 2010-11 school year, the program expanded to include schools using Columbia River tributaries located just outside the park. During the 2012-13 school year more than 1300 students, 54 teachers, 21 school districts and 100 resource partners actively participated in the program.
During the 2012 summer, a test expansion workshop was presented. This test expansion workshop consisted of 21 teachers from 18 school districts throughout the Columbia River Watershed in Washington and Oregon. These teachers tested model program materials and network sharing venues. The workshop also included a few informal educators interested in The River Mile as well as educators interested in the training but not able to participate in the test expansion. By March 1, 2013, 95 teachers and more than 4600 students from 21 school districts participated in The River Mile in some manner.
Beginning in 2013 The River Mile Network was made available to educators throughout the watershed in the United States and Canada and developed a new website with networking tools and resources. The network began offering a variety of professional development opportunities throughout the watershed as well as participating in a variety of outreach events and conferences. To accomplish the vision for the network key partners were identified and a management team established. Thanks to all the formal and informal partners The River Mile flourishes today.
The Crayfish Study
In 2011 the park’s biologist gave a presentation for one of our events and this sparked teacher and student curiosity. During the 2011-2012 school year Columbia School assisted the biologist with data collection throughout the park. We decided to offer crayfish dissection as a program at the Student Science Symposium, but the park’s biologist left the park before the event. So, we asked Columbia School lead teacher Debra Berg if she and the students that assisted with data collection would be able to give the presentation. Luckily they said yes! And this set in motion the growing Crayfish Study. A large number of school groups expressed interest in helping with crayfish research, so the network began creating and offering training, materials, and project opportunities. The River Mile’s Crayfish Project Coordinator was able to obtain state permits for crayfish collection in both Washington and Oregon. Dr. James Ekins, University of Idaho Extension, secured a permit for Idaho. Today participation in the study spans the continent! Learn More about the Crayfish Study here.
The COVID-19 Pandemic
During the summer of 2020 LRF/The River Mile Network was awarded a mulit-year regional EPA grant for the River Mile’s Crayfish Study. The Pandemic, which changed everything in spring 2020, posed a challenge for many of the planned opportunities. In-person training had been planned. Luckily, due to the great distances between groups in the Columbia River Watershed (and the continent) The River Mile was already offering virtual opportunities for students and teachers. One of these was a virtual training for the Crayfish Study. We quickly changed a planned in-person training to virtual, and then we converted other training as well. Through online events such as professional development, training, networking opportunities, and conferences, The River Mile has been able to expand to nearly 1000 formal and informal educators and their students.
In 2021 The River Mile Network began the transition to being a program of Lake Roosevelt Forum. Lake Roosevelt Forum has been key to the success of The River Mile as financial and administrative custodians since the beginning. This set in place a great foundation to continue the network outside of the National Park Service.