Project Overview

Students at Summit Expeditionary Academy in Stanwood, WA created this postcard as a service project to inform the community about the restoration of the Port Susan Estuary.

In phase 1 of this 3-month expedition on Port Susan, students in grades 3 – 6 visited the Padilla Bay Reserve to learn about estuaries.  While at the reserve, students worked with experts to complete laboratory work and field research. Back at school, students worked in expert groups to learn about life cycles, food webs, and the transfer of energy within the system of the estuary.  Each expert group shared their research with the whole class. 

In the second phase of this project, the students focused on the impacts on the estuary by geology, tides, weather and humans.  During a site visit, students compared the areas of the estuary impacted by dike development with areas left as natural marsh. They learned how dikes disrupt the flow of fresh water in estuaries and how they left the Port Susan Estuary depleted and low in biological diversity. Students learned about The Nature Conservancy’s Port Susan Restoration Project to breach the dike and revitalize the natural habitat.

Following their fieldwork, students worked as a team to create this informational postcard. The students went through a revision process for both the text and the layout of the postcard, working together to distill vast amounts of information into 3 paragraphs. The completed postcard was mailed to 7,500 homes in their local community.