Inspiring the Next Generation of Leaders: An Interview with Victor Martinez
Victor teaches fishing knots at an Outdoor Equity Program day
“If the kids get tagged out of the salmon life cycle game, they don’t like it and you can tell they’re visibly upset. But then we remind them, “hey, you’re a salmon, you have to work hard to survive.””
Victor Martinez works with TRT’s Central Valley team on youth education and riverside access through the College Corps program. He started fishing on the Tuolumne in 2020—a pandemic hobby that caught him a new career path and got him hooked on sharing his love for the river with Modesto youth. Fishing puns aside, in this interview Victor talks about his own river journey and how play-filled environmental education builds climate resilience along the Tuolumne River.
Can you share about your personal relationship to the Tuolumne River and how are you connected to it?
I really didn't have a relationship with the river for most of my life, but a couple months before I started with TRT I was fishing a lot. I used to live in the Airport Neighborhood of Modesto, right next to the river. We would never take the time to go down there. It was not something that was like, “oh, let's go out to the river.” It was more like, “okay, it's over there but not totally inviting.” I wouldn't go kayaking on it or tubing—we just never had the time to go out to the river.
It is the closest river though, so once I did start going, I would find good fishing spots. Now, after working with it, I just know more about the river. I know more about why it's important to the community and stuff like that.
Victor and Blanca (Central Valley Program Manager) enjoying a day on the Tuolumne at Paddle with the Salmon
What prompted you to finally go out there and start fishing?
It was my freshman year of college, and we were still pretty locked down because of COVID, so I couldn't really go outside much. So, me and a close buddy of mine started learning more about fishing and just going out more. We went to Walmart and bought a pretty good reel rod and tackle box. It was a teach-myself-as-I-go and watch YouTube videos to learn kind of thing.
We would go to Fox Grove and just walk the trails until we found a good spot, and we would fish there every now and then. At one point, I was there almost every day just fishing. I caught my first good fish on the Tuolumne; it was kind of a nice, good-sized bass.
It was my pandemic response—an escape from the indoors. I just needed to get outside again, and it was great.
Can you talk about some of the projects you've worked on at TRT?
The main two I helped with are the Outdoor Equity Program (OEP) and Trekking in the Classroom. With OEP we have a designated school and a group of kids who we take on different outings along with their families. We do hikes, outdoor picnics, nature journaling, we learn how to kayak safely, how to fish, how to tie their lures.
We teach a lot of useful outdoor knowledge to them, and at the end they feel excited about what they want. We've had kids that want to go fishing more, and the kids that know how to fish, they really brighten up and talk about it more.
With Trekking in the Classroom, we go to schools to teach youth about the watershed, why it's important, what it replenishes, how you can differentiate between watersheds, the salmon lifecycle, and why salmon are so important to our ecosystem—giving nutrients back and just spawning and how hard it is for them to get up river, stuff like that. We show them the lifecycle of what a salmon has to go through to survive.
Salmon-players run fast to get through the jump rope “turbine" in a rousing game of Hooks & Ladders that enacts the salmon life cycle
Relatedly, it's increasingly hard to see salmon in Central Valley rivers like the Tuolumne, right? Their populations are so low at this point. It feels like it would be hard to teach students about a fish that they might not ever see. What has your experience with that been like?
Yeah, a lot of the students say, “oh, salmon, like the food?” Some of them do know what a salmon is though. Maybe they've gone fishing before, but still many people only know it as food. So, we have physical activities that keep the kids more excited. We'll have them paint a salmon or the life cycle, and we'll have them go outside.
We have a game that mimics the salmon life cycle. Everyone has fun and gets involved in that one. We have them run down an area of our playing field which acts as the river. We'll start it off with no human-made obstacles—no turbines, no fishermen, no dams—and then we'll add more stuff in. So, the more stuff we put in the “river,” the harder and harder for the salmon to survive, just like in real life.
They have to jump through a jump rope that’s the “turbine.” We have “predators” in the river, so there's some people throwing stuffed animals at salmon-players. If you get hit, then it means you got eaten. If you step outside of the river area, it means you jumped out of the water, which means you lost. Then, the salmon players have to go in the ocean for a bit, run around, and then run back upriver through the salmon ladder, which are hula hoops that they have to jump through.
So yea, we keep 'em engaged.
Do you have a sense of how the kids feel after they play that game or during it?
They like it and they always ask for more rounds. They say, “can we go again? Can we do it again?”
If they're getting out, they don't like it. They're like, “oh man,” and you can tell they're visibly upset. But then we remind them, “hey, you're a salmon, you have to work hard to survive.”
Students learn about salmon in the classroom and through game play
So they really get that firsthand empathy about what salmon’s lives are like. Do you feel like learning through play is related to building climate resilience somehow?
I do. I feel like even just having that awareness at such a young age is important. Knowing that we need to do something about the rivers and keep them cleaner is important. Alongside the games, we also teach the kids about riparian zones and what a weak one versus a strong one looks like. We teach them about water quality and how to measure turbidity. So, they leave with science skills too.
We teach how a good river looks and how a murky river looks and what causes that. They have more knowledge by the end of our programs; you can tell that they do know more about the rivers and we always tell them, “go home, tell your parents.” They go home and spread the word with the take-home things we give them, alongside their drawings and their paintings.
With youth, it's also a long game right, it’s about planting seeds. You're helping build core memories for them, hoping that some of these things will stick. Do you feel like when they're older they’ll realize that they care about salmon and the Tuolumne River watershed?
Yea, it's like third, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. So, they're pretty young. It's like planting the seeds so they can then think about river health and have all this awareness later on.
We've actually gone back to schools, maybe a year later, and we'll have kids, I remember from last year saying, “oh, I remember the watershed. I remember you guys.” So, it’s good knowing that the knowledge sinks in and that they remember it for years.
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