Riya and Isha's Corner: A Watershed Watcher Story

Meet Riya and Isha! They are Da Potato Sisters, local gradeschoolers on a mission to educate Refuge visitors about the importance of our wetlands and inform visitors about the trash being left behind. This page will be for Riya and Isha to take the lead on updating our community on Refuge happenings, current events, plastic pollution, and their latest projects!

Conserving our marshlands

Riya and Isha started a conservation signs project dedicated to sharing with visitors the importance of conserving our marshlands, specifically the Don Edwards marshlands. (You might have seen these colorful hand-illustrated signs as well as plenty of “Pack it in, pack it out” signs around the trails.)

Riya, Isha, and Ranger Tia at Refuge Headquarters, Fremont in 2022, holding up three of Riya's posters. Photo courtesy: Olivia Poulos/SFBWS.

Da Potato Sisters

Riya and Isha decided to call themselves “Da Potato Sisters” in honor of their mom’s signature, home-made potato pizza that they constantly pester her to make, and to which her standard reply is “Maybe later...”

Riya and Isha, Da Potato Sisters.

Podcast: Exploring the World with Da Potato Sisters

Riya and Isha always had it in mind to start an fun, educational podcast. After watching countless amazing documentaries and listening to a lot of nature-related podcasts, they eventually got inspired to start one of their own. It's called “Exploring the World with Da Potato Sisters” and it's all about animals and their habitats.

From September 2023 through October 2024, they recorded 20 episodes in their first season, which is about the ocean. They interviewed many individuals from NOAA (National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, a government branch), researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and even a shark scientist from Florida State University, dedicated to sharing their knowledge. Along with these fun and engaging interviews, Riya and Isha also share some information of their own.

Starting late October 2024, they have dived into their second season, which is about grasslands. For the second episode of the season, they had the pleasure of interviewing Melissa Mccartney, Sacramento Zoo’s Senior Animal Care Manager. Subscribe to their podcast and have fun listening!
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/exploring-the-world-with-da-potato...
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1cnfQMgTdEw4UzAou7oQNy

Help Save our Marshlands

Riya wants to show everyone how to save our wetland habitats! Follow her guide below for tips on reducing our plastic consumption, recycling properly, and picking up litter so that you can be a Marshland Superhero!

⮇ Click here to download Riya's guide on how to be a Marshland Superhero! (PDF 16.1 MB) ⮇

Riya's posters

⮇ Click here to download Riya's posters (PDF 4.8 MB) ⮇

Riya's poster encourages the public to help out our marshes by leaving no trash behind.

Riya's poster encourages everyone to be a superhero by showing ways to reduce, reuse and recycle.

Riya's story

Riya as a 5th grader, in her living room, wearing a big smile.

Here's Riya's inspirational story:

My passion for animals and to help the environment started in first grade when my mom introduced me to this TV show called Octonauts. It is a cartoon show all about sea creatures. I started thinking that maybe when I grow up, I might become an Octonaut. In second grade my awesome teacher, Ms. Esperanza, expanded my passion by giving me follow-up work to do on the Earth lesson she had taught me. She said I should do a project that will help the environment. I went home wondering what I could do.

This led me to start a project called CrayonMania. My group and I made boxes that encouraged children in school to put their broken crayons in them and placed them around the school. We melted these broken crayons into molds and sold them. We made enough money to split to give to our favorite causes. I gave my funds to my favorite walking place, Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. By this time I was in love with all animals and learning more about Don Edwards SF Bay NWR helped me understand the importance and beauty of the marshland and the unique animals that lived and visited there.

Thanks to COVID my family started going out on walks more and we walked frequently on the Refuge. Then I started noticing the amount of trash that was littered in the marshland and started doing trash pickups with my sister every time I visited, which was once a week now.

Riya and her family picking up trash at the Refuge.

My sister would call out the name of every single piece of trash she saw and she made me realize that someone had to educate people about the importance of the marshland and inform people about the trash being left behind. This has led me to my current project to put up signs on the Refuge that educate and promote the "pack it in, pack it out" philosophy and inform people about picking their dog poop, etc. I hope we can continue learning, loving, and conserving the marshlands for years to come.

Riya's Reflection: 50 Years of Conservation at the Don Edwards SF Bay NWR

by Riya of Da Potato Sisters | October 8, 2022

Don Edwards is a beautiful refuge and is very important for the creatures living there. I love going to Don Edwards events, such as Earth Day, where I got to participate in some of the arts and crafts there and learned about watersheds. My parents figured out that it wasn't good to wash our cars the way we did now because all that soapy water would go into some water bodies and could make our wildlife sick. I also LOVED the Don Edwards 50th anniversary, and it was interesting to look at marsh mud through a microscope to see tiny bacteria moving and getting my face painted.

I was lucky to meet some amazing people there, such as Ms. Florence LaRiviere, the most inspirational person I have ever got to meet, and she talked about her work. She said, "one person can make a difference," and looking at her speaking, I was thinking how true that was.

Riya, Isha, and Deepti with CCCR Founder and Refuge Icon, Florence LaRiviere on October 8, 2022. Photo courtesy: TSNPhotos

Being at the Don Edwards 50th anniversary was a very unique experience where I got to learn about Ohlone culture through some songs from Ms. Munoz of the Ohlone Sisters. The anniversary was exciting every single minute! I can't wait for the next event Don Edwards has.