MLK Day at Gold Park

MLK Day at Gold Park: Service Learning Assignment

By Mackenzie Whittall 

Members of the Snohomish Tribe storytelling around
the fire before we began working.

    This Martin Luther King Jr. Day I spent my time (10 AM - 2 PM) volunteering at the service-learning event at Gold Park in Lynnwood, WA. A group of us Edmonds Community College students joined CSEL, the Department of Anthropology, Snohomish Tribe, and Blue Heron Canoe Family to clean up and do some yard work at the ethnobotanical garden just across the street from campus. (Contact email: sam.lebrun@email.edcc.edu) Our goals were to pick up trash and remove invasive and noxious plant species in the garden and along the trails and streams. I was responsible for clearing Himalayan blackberries, an invasive plant species that is spreading rapidly at Gold Park. It is important that you know exactly what you're looking for when removing these plants, as you don't want to mistakenly pull out the native trailing blackberry plant instead. Himalayan blackberries have thicker, taller, darker-colored stems when compared to the native species. Also, this noxious species usually have five leaves or more on each plant, while the native trailing species have three or less.

Large root I pulled that shows how thick 
the Himalayan blackberry roots are.

Myself attending the event.

         Volunteering at Gold Park with the Snohomish Tribe on MLK Day has been going on for about a decade, and I'm more than glad I decided to join in this year. Seeing such a large group of different people in the community coming together on a holiday that most people take off was inspiring. It felt good to give back by cleaning up our park and continuing to preserve the important history of the plants in the ethnobotanical garden. It showed me firsthand how important it is for us to maintain not only beautiful places like Gold Park, but all around our community as well. Science helps us to better understand the relationships we have with one other, other species, and nature around us so its role in society is vital. There is so much diversity and culture in our communities that it's essential we work together and pass on our knowledge to future generations so that we can continue to survive and grow together.

         This event was a good example of how biology is interdisciplinary, meaning it can be related to and/or involved with other academic fields of study. We can better understand how our cultures, societies, and species have developed over time by studying topics using methods and knowledge from multiple fields. Other fields such as ecology, anthropology, and history collaborating with biology can teach us more about how people are similar and different from one another, plants, and people of the past. Using volunteering at Gold Park as an example, those of us that participated were not just future biologists, but instead people from different fields and walks of life. We worked together and shared our knowledge and skills in order to remove the correct plant species, clean up a large amount of trash, and understand the historical importance of the ethnobotanical garden to local tribes.

     I would like to thank Dr. Tom Murphy, Sam Lebrun, the Snohomish Tribe, Blue Heron Canoe Family and CSEL again for hosting this awesome event and allowing us students to join in on a day of celebrating diversity, the tribe's history, and our community. I am excited to come back again on Earth Day and in upcoming years to continue supporting our community and the people in it.

Questions:

• What is the ratio of invasive to native species at Gold Park?
• Are the invasive species killing our native species that have important history to our local native tribes? How can we stop this?
• What are the least harmful ways we can remove invasive species? 
• What is the most common type of trash found on site, and can we do something to specifically decrease this number?
• Would an addition of more trash cans and recycle bins along the trails decrease the amount of pollution and trash found at the park?