The fourth grade "Salmon in the Classroom" program began in 1990 when Terry Thorsos, a Wilder Mom, wrote and received the school's first grant. Wanting to expand the program to include the rest of the students, the Adopt-a-Watershed Program was started in 1994 by Maggie Windus, also a Wilder mom. Her goal was to "provide an enriched educational environment where students could experience nature, hands-on science, and learn the importance and interconnectedness of life in the watershed". Through a series of grants she was able to get the program up and running. Maggie wrote the curriculum to include K- 6th grades and over the next eight years taught and ran the program with the help of parent volunteers.

Watershed instruction happens three times a year, fall, winter and spring. There are two weeks where children receive an in class lesson. The following two weeks, we go out to the watershed near our school and perform the tasks we learned. We perform eight water quality and habitat type tests at seven sites within our watershed - dissolved oxygen, pH, flow & velocity, macroinvertebrate pollution tolerance, stream/wetland surveys, wildlife and plant inventories and photo documentation. Our kindergartner and first graders study colors and shapes in nature, living/nonliving in the watershed, the importance of stream temperature, and participate in spider and seed hunts.

The fourth graders study the life cycle of the salmon by raising their own salmon from eggs. In the fall they visit the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery and perform a stream survey while observing spawning King and Sockeye salmon in nearby Cottage Lake Creek. In the spring they release their salmon into Colin Creek which is located in our watershed.

The watershed program continues to be administered by a small group of volunteer Moms. Each watershed season over 100 parent volunteers come out to help the students with their watershed tasks, many come more than once. The program is sustained by the generous contributions of the Wilder PTSA.