A PROGRAM OF C.R.E.W.
Once Upon a Watershed
Hands-on local watershed education, restoration and stewardship experiences for transitional kindergarten, kindergarten, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th grade students in the Ventura River and Santa Clara River watersheds.
IMAGE BY SCOTT SOENS
C.R.E.W.'s free education program for 26 schools in the Ventura River and Santa Clara River watersheds.
Seven grade levels between transitional kindergarten and 7th grade each take one lesson on one piece of their watershed.
The lesson starts in the classroom and takes the class outdoors to the place it is about: the estuary lesson at the estuary, the oak lesson among the oaks.
The program has run since 2005 at no cost to schools or families.
Once Upon a Watershed is…
PROGRAMS
A student can meet the program six times between transitional kindergarten and 7th grade: the animals first, then the pollinators, the oaks, the estuary, the river, and the soil.
• TK AND KINDERGARTEN
Students meet the word watershed and the plants and animals that share theirs in Dianne Bennett's illustrated Once Upon a Watershed, in English and Spanish. Then they go outside and act out those plants and animals themselves.
• 2nd GRADE
Students learn how plants and pollinators depend on each other, the strategies pollinators use, and who our native pollinators are. Then they tend native plants in their own schoolyard habitat, where the pollinators come to them.
• 4th GRADE
Students learn what a watershed is, why oaks anchor its ecology, and what acorns mean to the Chumash. Then they plant acorns and oaks at a preserve at or near their school for Oaktober. The trees can outlive them by centuries.
• 5th GRADE
Students learn what an estuary is, why fresh water is finite, and how plastic and urban runoff reach the coast. Then they visit their own estuary, Ventura River or Santa Clara River, meet its sensitive species, clean its beach, and see where the watershed ends.
• 6th GRADE
Students trace the endangered Southern Steelhead Trout's migration and learn how Matilija Dam, slated for removal, cuts off its spawning grounds and starves the beaches downstream. The trip ends at the dam, where they see exactly how it is harming the ecosystem.
• 7th GRADE
Students meet living soil and the food web tying it to the plants above. They catch compost critters by hand, study them under low- and high-power microscopes, and carry the lesson to the school compost pile.
Any of the six lessons, transitional kindergarten through 7th grade.
A Matilija Dam tour, on its own or with the 6th grade lesson.
The soils lesson, adapted for any grade.
Native habitat gardens with signed plants
Food and edible gardens
Rainwater gardens
Composting at school
FIELD SITES
Once Upon a Watershed teaches in two river systems. Ojai classes work the Ventura River from Matilija Dam down to the estuary. Ventura and Rio School District classes work the lower Ventura River and the Santa Clara River estuary.
Two rivers and 26 schools
1,000+ acres: Ventura River Preserve (Ojai Valley Land Conservancy), Harmon Canyon Preserve (Ventura Land Trust).
26 to 500 acres: Ojai Meadows Preserve (Ojai Valley Land Conservancy), HELP of Ojai's West Campus, Taft Gardens, Krishnamurti Foundation.
5 to 25 acres: Meiners Oaks Park, Nordhoff High School, Middle Stewart Canyon, Summit / San Antonio, Big Rock Preserve (Ventura Land Trust).
Ojai Unified: Matilija School, Mira Monte, Nordhoff, Summit, Sunset.
Ventura Unified: E. P. Foster, De Anza, Sheridan Way, Will Rogers.
Rio School District: Rio del Sol, Rio del Mar, Rio Plaza, Rio del Valle, Rio Del Norte, Rio Vista, Rio Real, Rio Lindo, Rio Rosales.
The Ventura River estuary, the Santa Clara River estuary, the Steelhead Preserve, and Willoughby Preserve.
Maps: Once Upon a Watershed with Oakum Solutions, 2026. Basemap: City of Ventura, Bureau of Land Management, Esri, USGS, USDA, NPS.
HAPPENING NOW
The West Campus Preserve
In fall of 2025, Once Upon a Watershed began bringing classes to West Campus, the former Ventura County Honor Farm at 370 Baldwin Road in Ojai.
Since 2007, the county-owned property has been a campus of nonprofits, hosted by HELP of Ojai, and C.R.E.W. has its office there. The preserve is the stretch of that campus along West Campus Creek, and the restoration is returning it to wetland and creek habitat.
Classes of 4th and 6th graders from participating schools pull weeds and trash, plant locally sourced natives, and extend the riparian corridor along the creek.
The creek work is permitted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Sunset School 4th graders planted the first acorns on November 5, 2025. C.R.E.W. members train on the same ground in restoration installation and tracking.
Oaktober 2026’s community oak planting was held here on Saturday, October 24.
- 4.98AcresWeeds and trash out, locally sourced natives in
- 426Feet of creekRiparian corridor extended along West Campus Creek
- $98,016Grant awarded 2024California State Coastal Conservancy, Community Wetland Restoration Grant Program
- 3Protected speciesCrotch's bumble bee, southern California steelhead, California red-legged frog
HOW IT WORKS
Six lessons across seven grade levels
One structure.
Presentation
An educator visits your classroom first with a presentation that sets up the field day.
Field day
Your class goes out for a day of restoration or stewardship work at a preserve, the estuary, or the dam.
Follow-up
A follow-up activity back in your classroom closes the unit.
In January 2024, Oak Grove School's 6th graders came back from Matilija Dam and each wrote a letter to their county supervisor about what should happen to the dam.
Field days align with California's Next Generation Science Standards.
The program runs bilingual sessions, and the storybook that opens the transitional kindergarten and kindergarten lesson is printed in English and Spanish.
SINCE 2005
- 2005Three schools
Sara Brooke Benjamin starts Once Upon a Wetland at Oak Grove School, Meiners Oaks Elementary, and Nordhoff High School, working with the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy.
- 2008Watershed Revolution
By 2008, students collect native seed at the Ojai Meadows Preserve in fall, grow it over winter, and plant it in the preserve's wetland in spring. Rich Reid films the work for the documentary Watershed Revolution, which premieres in 2009.
- 2010A new director
David White, Ph.D., becomes program director.
- 2011The grant is cut
A three-year federal grant is cut after one year. The program keeps going.
- 2015The storybook
Ojai artist Dianne Bennett's 32-page picture book Once Upon a Watershed is published, painting the birds, trees, and animals of the watershed.
- 2020Oaktober
David White brings Oaktober, Oak Awareness Month, to Ventura County.
- 2021and 2022Proclamations
Ojai and Ventura proclaim October Oak Awareness Month in 2021. The Ventura County Board of Supervisors recognizes Oaktober on October 4, 2022.
- 2022The count
1,349 students and 49 teachers at 15 schools.
- 2023Matilija Dam
Over the school year that starts in fall 2023, David White leads 15 class trips to Matilija Dam under a county permit.
- 2024Steelhead listed
On April 18 the California Fish and Game Commission lists southern California steelhead as endangered under the state Endangered Species Act, 26 years after the 1997 federal listing.
- 2025West Campus Preserve
The West Campus Preserve on Baldwin Road in Ojai opens as a field site.
- 202626 schools
Lessons run from transitional kindergarten through 7th grade at 26 schools in two watersheds.
21 years, from the Ventura River to the Santa Clara
SUPPORT ONCE UPON A WATERSHED STUDENTS
A Once Upon a Watershed lesson costs a school nothing.
The storybooks, the oaks, the microscopes, and the educators who teach six lessons at 26 schools do require funds to get a class out into its own watershed.
A donation designated to Once Upon a Watershed is used 100% for Once Upon a Watershed.
Designating donations to
“Once Upon a Watershed” allows our program to receive the funds directly
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1,349Students in one yearWith 49 teachers, 2022
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15Class trips to Matilija DamThe school year that started in fall 2023
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$0What a school pays26 schools in Ojai Unified, Ventura Unified, and Rio School District
EDUCATORS
The people helping tell the story…
PARTNERS
Students plant the acorns and their communities inherit the oaks
These organizations help supply the land, the classrooms, and the funds to do it.
Land and open space
Ojai Valley Land Conservancy
Ventura Land Trust
Oaktober
Ojai Raptor Center
Ojai Valley Green Coalition
Ojai Trees
School districts
Ojai Unified School District
Ventura Unified School District
Rio School District
Funders of record
California State Coastal Conservancy
DAM AWARENESS
The Matilija Dam
Matilija Dam. Notched twice since it was built: 198 feet then, 168 feet now.
- Built
- 1947
- Behind it
- The sediment the river would have carried to the beaches at its mouth
- Below it
- Southern California steelhead swim up to the concrete and stop, short of the spawning water upstream
- The lesson
- Story of Our River, with its field day at the base of the dam
- Students learn
- Why the beaches need that sediment, and why the steelhead need a free-flowing river
- What they can do
- Help speed up the dam's removal
- Booking
- Schools book the trip with the lesson
Dam specifications
- 168Feet of concreteBuilt with no fish ladder
- 9 millionCubic yards of sedimentNearly half of it silt and clay
- 17Miles of habitat upstreamSteelhead spawning water, cut off since 1947
- 1998County agreed on removalIt is still standing
- 2030Target to start removalConstruction planned for 2030 or 2031
EACH OCTOBER
Oak Awareness Month in Ventura County
Each October
Oaktober
A month for the oaks of the Ojai Valley and Ventura County, since 2020.
David White brought Oaktober to Ventura County in 2020. Once Upon a Watershed runs it: a walk under the oaks, a planting, and events put on with other Ojai Valley groups, which change from year to year.
- The recordProclaimed by two cities and the countyOjai and Ventura proclaimed October Oak Awareness Month in 2021. The Ventura County Board of Supervisors recognized Oaktober on October 4, 2022.
- 01 · The walkWalk with the OaksA guided walk under the mature oaks of Taft Gardens with David White, the oak reforestation expert, and author Melina Watts reading from Tree. Held in 2023 and 2026.
- 02 · The plantingCommunity Oak PlantingA morning planting oaks in the Ojai Valley, at a different site each time. 2023: Libbey Park, Ojai, with Ojai Trees. 2026: West Campus Preserve, 370 Baldwin Road, Ojai, free.
Each year's dates, tickets, and meeting places post on the Once Upon a Watershed Oaktober page.