Major Rivers

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Major Rivers

• A Water Education Program
• for Texas

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Overview

• Major Rivers is a water education curriculum
  designed to teach 4th-5th grade students about
  Texas major water resources, how water is
  treated and delivered to their homes and schools,
  how to care for their water resources, and how to
  use them wisely.

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Why do we need Major Rivers?

• Students should be aware of the importance of
  water and how Texas manages water resources
• Existing water supplies are decreasing and water
  demand is increasing

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Background

• LCRA originally launched Major Rivers in 1989
• LCRA released an updated local version in 2002
• TWDB and LCRA worked together to produce a new
  statewide version in spring 2003
• TWDB distributed the first printing of the new
  statewide version in Aug 2003

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Materials provided

• Teachers guide that covers 8 lessons
• 5 full color overhead transparencies
• Introductory video
• 30 full color student workbook (20 pages)
• 30 home information leaflets
• Attractive box to keep materials together

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Teaching tools

• Correlation with TEKS
• many objectives covered in science, math,
  language arts, and social studies
• Pretest/posttest sheets
• Activity sheets, maps review exercises to
  complement lessons
• Hands-on activities in every lesson
• Internet resources
• Optional Extension and Enrichment Activities

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Lessons

• Lesson 1 Water in Texas
• Lesson 2 The Water Cycle
• Lesson 3 Texas Water Supply and Water Planning
• Lesson 4 Watersheds and River Basins
• Lesson 5 How Our Water Use Affects Our World
• Lesson 6 Water Treatment and Distribution
• Lesson 7 Using Water Efficiently
• Lesson 8 Review and Posttest

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Lesson 3 Aquifer Model Exercise
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Lesson 3 Water Coursing through History
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Lesson 5 Nonpoint vs. point source pollution
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Lesson 6 Water Treatment
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Awards

• Major Rivers won a "Gold Quill" award from the
  International Association of Business
  Communicators for the design and illustration
  work for the program.
• Major Rivers also won a related reward, a "Bronze
  Quill" award, in local competition sponsored by
  the IABC/Austin chapter.

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Awards

• Major Rivers won two awards in 2003 from the
  Texas Section of the American Water Works
  Association (TAWWA)
• 1. a Watermark Award for education
• 2. a Conservation and Reuse Award for
  conservation

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Feedback

• Statewide program just launched in August
• Evaluations very positive so far
• One classroom showed an average score increase
  from 46 on the pretest to 85 on the posttest
• Comment from teacher that completed the program
• "They looked forward to class everyday. I think
  they were disappointed when we finished the
  program."

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Continuing Education Credits

• LCRA provides Major Rivers workshops that give
  teachers continuing education credits
• (18 hrs total)
• State Board for Educators Certification (SBEC)
• Texas Environmental Education Advisory Committee
  (TEEAC)
• Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented
  (TAGT)

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Enjoy teaching Major Rivers!

• Be Water Smartfor today and tomorrow