For some students, summer means sleeping in, taking a break from school, and maybe spending a little too much time on their phones. For the young people learning with our Seattle Team on the Duwamish River, summer looked a little different.
This summer, Northwest Maritime hosted three sessions of Champ Camp at parks along the Duwamish River, giving younger campers a chance to explore the river through hands-on science and maritime activities. At Heapus Park, campers ages 5–8 built and decorated their own toy boats, examined plankton pulled from the river, and learned to identify birds that call the Duwamish home.
Older campers, ages 9–12, took their exploration a step further at Duwamish People’s Park. They learned how to use a plankton net and microscopes to investigate what was living in the river and got behind the controls of Northwest Maritime’s ROV, piloting the underwater vehicle and getting a closer look at the world beneath the surface.
For these young explorers, the Duwamish wasn’t just something to learn about. It was their classroom.
And the learning continued with a partnership between Northwest Maritime and the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps, a program of the Duwamish River Community Coalition.
Together, students spent the summer helping improve a new community water access site in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood, near the corner of 10th Avenue South and South Kenyon Street and adjacent to Duwamish Waterway Park. The site is part of Seattle Public Utilities’ South Park Community Water Access Project and will eventually provide a place for people to connect with the Duwamish River.
Students cleaned up the former residential property, removed invasive species, spread wood chips, and learned basic construction skills while also building picnic tables and boat storage racks. The work was physical, practical, and directly connected to the future of the site.
Transformative maritime experiences are at the core of what we hope young people take away from Northwest Maritime’s programs, including Maritime High School. Whether they are building a boat, looking through a microscope at plankton, or helping turn a piece of riverfront property into a community resource, students are learning by doing.
No summers off for these students and educators alike!
