June 13 is Methow Kids’ Free Fishing Day and Methow Valley fifth graders have been carving block prints to commemorate this year’s theme: It Takes a Watershed.

Fishing Day activities at the Winthrop Fish Hatchery include: fishing for big trout, fish cleaning station, rolling river, hands-on casting with targets, Smokey Bear, salmon cooking, fly tying, gyotaku, fish art, ethics and boating safety.

Free event!

Partnership blends art and environmental education for interdisciplinary learning

The winning block print designs by Clarissa Colvin, Zane Hickman, Noah Holston, and Kierra Reichert will be featured on t-shirts commemorating the 2015 Methow Kids’ Free Fishing Day. All are fifth grade students at Methow Valley Elementary School. Additional designs by Amelia Bondi and Payten Kaufman were chosen to be featured on posters which are hung throughout the valley.

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The blockprints were created through an interdisciplinary unit on Methow fish and fish habitat offered to fifth graders in conjunction with National Fishing and Boating Week and with sponsorship from the Bureau of Reclamation. The theme: IT TAKES A WATERSHED, captures  the concept of the beautiful complexity of a healthy ecosystem. In this interdisciplinary unit students first learned about fish and fish habitat in a workshop in their classrooms with a local naturalist, Dana Visalli. They then sketched images and learned how to carve blocks and print them with local teaching artists, Laura Gunnip and Emily Post. There are many outstanding examples of block prints from the last 15 years; many are featured in a free calendar, Living With the Methow River, produced by the Methow Resource Council and through a collaboration with Methow Arts Alliance.              

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 This hands-on art residency was brought to students by Methow Arts’ Okanogan Region Arts Education Partnership.  The partnership serves more than 5,200 students and 370 teachers across Okanogan County with arts programs in classrooms in the Omak, Okanogan, Brewster, Bridgeport, Pateros, and Methow School Districts, and in the Paschal Sherman Indian School.

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The Fishing Day project is a collaboration among Big R, Cascade Columbia Fisheries Enhancement Group, Dick Hill Tackle Shop, Friends of Northwest Hatcheries, Methow Arts Alliance, Methow Conservancy, Methow Recycles, Methow Restoration Council, Methow Salmon Recovery Foundation, Methow Valley Fly Fishers, Methow Valley School District, National Endowment for the Arts, Okanogan Conservation District, Okanogan- Wenatchee National Forest, Trout Unlimited, Upper Columbia Salmon Recovery Board, US Army Corps of Engineers, US Bureau of Reclamation, US Fish & Wildlife Service, US Geological Survey, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Washington State Arts Commission, Washington State Parks, Wild Fish Conservancy, and Yakama Nation.

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INFO: Methow Arts Alliance, 509.997.4004, info@methowartsalliance.org