Duwamish Valley Youth Corps visit

On March 14th the University of Washington (UW) Superfund Research Program (SRP) co-sponsored a campus visit with Isabel Carrera Zamanillo of the UW College of the Environment for twenty members of the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps. The Duwamish Valley Youth core is a program run by Carmen Martinez and Paulina Lopez of the Duwamish River Clean-up Coalition to build community capacity by involving youth in activities aimed at community service and personal development.  

 

During their visit to the UW Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, Youth Core members toured two of Evan Gallagher’s labs, hearing from Chase Williams and Richard Ramsden about how heavy metals and ocean acidification can affect the sense of smell in fish. They also got to see first-hand how the experiments are done that yield important insights into fish physiology.

 

Next the students heard from current students, Brayan Jimenez and Lovely Frances Domingo, both of whom are first-generation students at UW. Lovely is currently a masters student in the Information School and Brayan is an undergrad from the same neighborhood as many of the Duwamish River Valley Youth Core students. His advice to them was “Cultivate your own leadership. No one’s going to be able to help you get there if you don’t know why you’re doing it.” Another message of the event was “All you need to make your dreams come true are the people to help you.”

 

Afterwards, the students broke into small groups to do hands-on exercises aimed at teaching concepts of climate. These were presented by Andre Perkins, Lucas Cepetello, and

Judy Twedt, three outreach volunteers from the UW Department of Atmospheric Sciences.

 

The evening ended with a presentation of the Japanese concept of Ikigai, the ideal of finding work you are good at, enjoy, that feeds you and that solves a need in the world. Everyone left with a reusable bag and the business card of UW SRP Research Translation Manager, Lisa Hayward Watts, who’s always happy to act as a future contact.