Events

Uthful Service

/ Jason Major / Leave a comment

Salter Grove recently hosted high school students who fulfilled their community service hours towards their graduation requirements. The experience proved to be mutually beneficial. 

Alexandra Dickinson maintaining the trail through the Knotweed Jungle and excavating a hole for a trail marker. 

Two equally effective approaches were taken. Starting in late May, Alexandra Dickinson, a senior from Lincoln School in Providence dedicated 40 hours over a two-week period to assist with maintaining the vegetation and signage along the nature trails.

Using both field observations and the Guide to Salter Grove, she learned to identify many of the common birds and plants that occur in the park. 

Alexandra examining wild asparagus along the Marsh Trail. 
MET HS students, their blue-tied teacher, and their mascot The Rock. 

In early June, Cole Robinson and his class of 14 sophomores from the MET High School devoted two hours to: 1) install signage along the Upland Trail, 2) clear vegetation to provide access to a patch of heavily fruiting blackberry, and 3) remove Japanese knotweed throughout the park to deter further invasion. 

Installing a trail marker. 
Clearing vegetation for access to blackberry patch. 
Removing Japanese knotweed from pond area. 

All of the students were first introduced to the impenetrable patch of Japanese knotweed on Audubon Field. Witnessing the aggressive growth of this introduced species helped them realize how their respective tasks contribute to the overall care of the park. 

See more photos from the MET students’ work at Salter Grove below:

(MET visit photographs by FoSG member Jason Major)

An Enlightening Outdoor Experience 

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On June 1st, 2023, 4th- and 5th-graders from St. Peter School walked to Salter Grove accompanied by three teachers and five 8th-grade honor students. 

Students and teachers from St. Peter School

During the 90-minute visit, information from the Guide to Salter Grove was accessed by smartphone to to explore and learn about the ecological assets of the park. 

Talking about what will be seen on the nature trails. 

Science topics discussed in the classroom came to life for students and teachers alike. 

Students recorded observations in journals.

Organized into small groups, they walked along nature trails to observation stations that featured examples of: glacial history and geology of Rhode Island; native versus introduced plants; impact of invasive plants; different kinds of aquatic and terrestrial habitats; tolerance of marsh plants to brackish water; and human impact on the environment. 

Examining glacial striations along Upland Trail. 

And all this, from just six of 23 observation stations! 

Inside the knotweed jungle. 

Dr. Susan Unger, the science teacher who organized this field trip, would like to continue using Salter Grove as an outdoor classroom. Future field trips would focus on fewer topics so students can dive more deeply into the subject matter. Instead of simply noting down observations, they could collect data to answer specific questions formulated during classroom discussion. 

See more photos from the St. Peter School field trip below:

(Photos by FoSG member Jason Major)

To Everything There is a Season

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Early on the morning of May 6th, a group of five explorers began an observational journey through the trails of Salter Grove. 

Billy McGovern confers with Anonymous, Stella, Wesley, Gwen, and Michael (L to R, Michael not pictured) about their park exploration. 

The youngsters met at a cozy picnic table along Upland trail. They were shown a series of pictures of the same location at different times of the year. The explorers noted how the features of the pictures changed seasonally.

With the pictures in mind, the explorers next set out to find an interesting location in Salter Grove. Having chosen an appropriate spot, they began the process of documenting the area. Armed with pencils, crayons, and markers they drew their chosen location with great detail.

Back at the picnic table, the explorers displayed great enthusiasm while describing the features in their pictures that they found most interesting.

Gwen
Michael
Stella
Wesley

The explorers will keep their pictures in a safe location for a future adventure. During the summer, they will draw another picture of the same location to see how it has changed over time.

This was the second outing of a program being developed by the Friends of Salter Grove. This program aims to show that outdoor recreation and education with minimum technology is fun.

Like Scandinavian forest schools, the program aims to instill a sense of respect for the environment and the importance of having minimal impact while demonstrating how to use a shared space without impairing others’ enjoyment.

Turn! Turn! Turn! 

Volunteers Help Salter Grove Look its Best for Spring 

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The 2023 cleanup season at Salter Grove got off to a strong start on March 18, thanks to a big turnout of volunteers, including many first-timers.

Cold, grey, and windy conditions didn’t diminish the enthusiasm of families and individuals who had signed up for some outdoor activity in anticipation of Spring.

Nearly 30 people worked together to collect 302 pounds of trash and other debris blown in by winter storms.

Organized by Save the Bay, large volunteer groups contribute to the regular efforts of nearby residents to keep up Salter Grove and its surrounding shorelines for the public to enjoy.

Teams come out at least monthly from March to November.

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Spring Cleaning with Save the Bay Volunteers

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One sign of spring at Salter Grove is the flocking of volunteers to clean up the park and help make it more enjoyable for visitors and safer for wildlife.

For many consecutive years, Save the Bay in Providence has organized groups for two-hour shoreline cleanups on evenings and weekends.

On April 2, 28 enthusiastic volunteers braved a sunny but cold and windy day for the first cleanup of 2022. They gave the season a great start by hauling out 376 pounds of refuse. Items ranged from small plastics, such as water bottle tops and cigar tips, to large foam pieces of boating equipment that weighed more than 20 pounds.

The first cleanup of the year is typically a large haul because so many items accumulate during the winter months. Anything that wind and waves can move end up trapped in vegetation of the park or mired in the mud of the shoreline.

A second group came out on May 23, an event that was part of the Earth Day and Earth Week initiatives planned by Save the Bay at many locations around the state. On a chilly morning, 25 volunteers removed about 110 pounds of trash. The teams did painstaking work in the northwest corner of the park between Narragansett Parkway and the waterline. This area of the park was recently cleared of brush by a separate group of FoSG volunteers. This project revealed years’ worth of accumulation of small plastics — not heavy, but great in number.

This year, a number of new cleanup leaders are training at Salter Grove, a good sign that the efforts will be sustainable for years to come. Salter Grove is an important site for cleanups, both because of its rich ecological diversity and the number of anglers it attracts each year.

The next spring cleanup will take place on Sunday, May 22, at 9 a.m. Interested volunteers should register at volunteer.savebay.org before attending. 

Photos by Save the Bay

International Coastal Cleanups at Salter Grove

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Save the Bay hosted a corporate cleanup event at Salter Grove in 2019

Salter Grove plays an important role in the struggle for the health of the oceans as one of the settings of the International Coastal Cleanup (ICC) organized by the Ocean Conservancy and Save the Bay.

Each year, volunteers around the world join together in both cleaning beaches and documenting the waste and pollution that they find. The Ocean Conservancy launched this project over 30 years ago.

Salter Grove is the site of three of the 30 ICC events this year planned by Save the Bay as the Rhode Island State Coordinator. The first took place on September 11, which also coincided with the National Day of Service and Remembrance commemorating the 2001 terrorism attacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Another public volunteer cleanup is scheduled for September 25, and a corporate group will do a cleanup in October.

This year’s total is one event shy of the 2019 record, when Salter Grove hosted four ICC cleanups and over 70 volunteers.

Additional ICC events are happening around the state. Last year, even with the partial shutdown of activities due to the Covid-19 pandemic, nearly 600 volunteers joined in the ICC, collecting more than 4,000 pounds of trash from Rhode Island Shores.

Top three trash items collected in 2020 RI International Coastal Cleanups:
11,662 cigarette butts
5,250 plastic pieces (under 2.5 centimeters)
2,623 plastic bottle caps
Source: 2020 International Coastal Cleanup / Rhode Island Report & Call To Action.

The efforts of individual volunteers and Save the Bay groups have improved the trash control situation at Salter Grove, but more needs to be done. Food and beverage packaging left behind by recreational visitors and washed in by the waves still pollutes the area and poses risks to wildlife.

Volunteer efforts are gradually bouncing back with the reopening of normal activity in the state. The number of volunteers per cleanup has returned to a little more than 60% of the 2019 average.

If you are interested in participating in a public cleanup and at least 13 years of age, visit Save the Bay and learn how to register.