As Riverside High School gets closer to opening for the 2023-24 school year, a critical component of the school’s identity is closer to finalization thanks to the hard work and creativity of current West Linn-Wilsonville high school students.

Students from West Linn High School Teacher Wind Lothamer and Wilsonville High School Teacher Jason Jensen's graphic design classes spent the better part of May and April dreaming up key branding elements for the new Riverside High School. Students imagined, developed, and created a school logo, color scheme, mascot, and accompanying branding designs before pitching their ideas to a group of WLWV staff on Thursday, May 26.

Working in teams or as individuals, students gave formal pitches to share what they had created and why their designs would be the best fit for Riverside High School. Students shared the intentionality in their designs, the research they conducted, and the overall rationale for their decisions. Students gave 28 unique pitches altogether, with countless impressive combinations of logos, mascots, school colors, and other branding designs. Student groups even created mock-ups of potential school apparel, school websites, athletics uniforms, and more. Students proposed names such as the Riverside Raptors, Rams, Ravens, Otters, Osprey, and Bears among other ideas. 

Following student presentations, WLWV staff will narrow down projects to choose a school mascot, colors, logo, and other design elements. The work created by current high school students will be enjoyed by future students, staff, and the WLWV community for years to come. 

In 2019, Boones Ferry Primary fifth grade students embarked on science-based collaboration with several local organizations aimed at creating a sustainable bioswale on the Boones Ferry Primary campus. Working with native plant specialists, ecologists, storm water specialists, natural resource specialists, CREST staff, and maintenance engineers from the City of Wilsonville, students presented ideas and designs to the team of experts.

Flash-forward nearly two and a half years and those students are now seventh-graders who have remained committed to improving the local ecosystem surrounding Boones Ferry Primary and Wood Middle School. Those same seventh-graders returned to Boones Ferry during the week of May 23 to begin planting native plants and, with a lot of hard work, creating the very plans they helped to create back in 2019.

With guidance from some of the same experts they collaborated with in 2019, students put shovels to dirt starting Tuesday, May 24, with the expectation of finishing the bioswale project before the end of the school year. The bioswale will serve as a natural storm water treatment area while providing a local ecosystem for native plants and wildlife to thrive.