River Source, fiscal sponsor Partners in Education Foundation

River Source supports people living as good stewards of their watersheds by creating educational opportunities, job pathways, and by providing planning, monitoring, and ecological restoration services throughout New Mexico since 1997. Our work focuses in three areas: school-based science and stewardship, watershed job pathways, and technical assistance for communities in watershed resilience practices. River Source programs aim to create transformative outdoor experiences that foster watershed stewardship: Watershed Watch: Introduces students and teachers to science techniques and project-based learning by creating outdoor classrooms at local rivers and at on-campus open spaces. The program engages youth from schools across New Mexico in watershed stewardship with 80% of students coming from rural and underserved BIPOC communities. The collected science data directly benefits efforts to track watershed health and is used for student-driven research. Watershed Academy: Provides both summer field intensive and school-year experiences for young adults in watershed science and restoration that create water job pathways. We introduce students to their local rivers, watersheds, and land through water quality monitoring, data collection, habitat and river restoration work, engagement with community leaders, and presentations to stakeholders. Youth Civics Education: Provides policy education and civic engagement for middle and high school students in New Mexico to amplify youth voices who engage state representatives. Direct support in Watershed Resilience: Providing consulting to tribes, cities, NGOs, and state agencies on ecological restoration. River Source coordinates experiential youth education programs that has provided over 4,000 experiences for approximately 2,000 people, primarily youth in middle and high school. In just the first five months of 2023, we have led outdoor watershed experiences for 977 youth and 64 adults with schools across New Mexico including tribal communities of San Ildefonso Pueblo, Santo Domingo Pueblo, Walatowa Pueblo, and the Santa Fe Indian School. Our reach has extended to rural and urban schools including Mesa Vista High School, Peñasco High, Valencia High, Robertson High (Las Vegas), Rio Rancho High, Aldo Leopold School, and Mora High School. We have gotten New Mexico’s youth out to dozens of rivers including the Rio Grande, Rio Santa Barbara, Rio Gallinas, Rio Mora, the Gila River and the Santa Fe River. Our 2023 summer intensive Watershed Academy has crews in 5 communities (El Rito, Pecos, Peñasco, Las Vegas/Mora, and Santa Fe). We expanded the program from 3 communities served in 2022 by adding Las Vegas/Mora and the Pecos to include areas affected by the Calf Canyon/Hermit’s Peak Fire.