Cascade Middle students test water at Burnt Bridge Creek

Evergreen — Students in Kristi Nygaard’s eighth-grade science class at Cascade Middle School have gotten to know Burnt Bridge Creek very well. Working with graduate student Alyson Day of the environmental science program at Washington State University Vancouver, they’ve sampled the creek’s macroinvertebrate abundance and diversity, from its headwaters to the mouth at Vancouver Lake. Day said she’s observed students who were previously failing get excited about this hands-on work. Check out their findings, among many local collaborative graduate-younger student projects focused on the Columbia River basin, at an exhibition from 6 to 8 p.m. today at in the Firstenburg Student Commons at WSUV, 14204 N.E. Salmon Creek Ave.