Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience: Integrating Policy and Practice

1
Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience
Integrating Policy and Practice
2
Chesapeake 2000 Agreement Chesapeake Bay is
dependent upon the actions of every citizen in
the watershed, both today and in the future.

• GOAL
• Promote individual stewardship and assist
  individuals, community-based organizations,
  businesses, local governments and schools to
  undertake initiatives to achieve the goals and
  commitments of this agreement.
• Beginning with the class of 2005, provide a
  meaningful Bay or stream outdoor experience for
  every school student in the watershed before
  graduation from high school.
• Provide students and teachers alike with
  opportunities to directly participate in local
  restoration and protection projects, and to
  support stewardship efforts in schools and on
  school property.

Virginia Department of Education
3
Chesapeake 2000 Agreement

• An education workgroup consisting of key
  stakeholders, including natural resource agency
  staff and department of education staff in each
  jurisdiction crafted the MWEE definition.
• Experiences are
• investigative or project oriented.
• richly structured and based on high-quality
  instructional design.
• an integral part of the instructional program.
• part of a sustained activity.
• consider the watershed as a system.
• involve external sharing and communication.
• enhanced by natural resources personnel.
• for all students.

Virginia Department of Education
4
Chesapeake 2000 Agreement Revision of Science
Standards of Learning A Great Opportunity!
Virginia Department of Education
5
Science Standards of Learning
The Virginia Science Standards of Learning (SOL)
were originally developed in 1995 and linked to
an assessment system that was launched in 1997. A
recent revision of the Science SOL adopted by the
Virginia Board of Education in 2003 that
incorporated an even greater number of
environmental concepts including the Chesapeake
Bay watershed.
Virginia Department of Education
6
Science Standards of Learning
The SOL have a Resources strand that flows from
kindergarten to sixth grade. It begins with the
introduction of natural resources and
conservation in Kindergarten and builds
throughout elementary school to the public policy
decisions relating to the environment in grade
six.
Virginia Department of Education
7
Science Standards of Learning
The grade six science SOL were revised to reflect
important Earth and environmental concepts
students need to be informed citizens. These
concepts are built upon in Life Science, Earth
Science and Biology.
Virginia Department of Education
8
Science Standards of Learning
Virginia PLT has worked over the years to keep
all of their 200 facilitators informed about the
MWEE commitment and any updated information such
as last fall's renewed commitments. They know
that they are expected to make sure their
workshop participants learn about MWEEs if they
are not already in the know. VA PLT encourage
facilitators to offer a wide variety of "themed"
workshops to meet specific needs of teachers,
including watershed education.
Virginia Department of Education
9
Science Standards of Learning

• Virginia Project Learning Tree assists with the
  keystone commitment implementation by
• providing the MWEE definition, along with some
  explanation, at PLT workshops
• providing workshops upon request that have a MWEE
  theme for the whole day. PLT facilitators
  provide ideas for activities and deeper content
  understanding that will help them with projects,
  such as planting trees, building rain gardens,
  how a riparian buffer functions, investigating
  land use changes on their school site, etc.
• supporting BWET projects, such as Mapping Water
  Quality- Using GPS, GIS and probeware to lead a
  Meaningful Bay Experience utilizing Places We
  Live modules.

Virginia Department of Education
10
Commonwealth of VirginiaProfessional Development

• Chesapeake Bay Academies Coastal and Mountain
  (middle and high school teachers)
• Sixth Grade Science Standards Institutes
• Outdoor Classroom Institutes (elementary
  teachers)
• Virginia Science Standards Institutes (upper
  elementary)
• VAST Professional Development Institute included
  a watershed strand to their annual conference for
  the past two years.
• VSELA/Natural Resource Agency Spring Meeting
  focused on MWEE and integration of watershed
  concepts into the curriculum.

11
Commonwealth of VirginiaFunding for Efforts

• Classroom Grants (500-1000 each)
• 318 grants for a total of 237,000
• Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund
• gt 25 school restoration projects 83,000
• Virginia Environmental Endowment grants
• B-WET grant to support school-based teacher
  training, curriculum development, and MWEE for
  students
• 6,000 students "on-the-water" field experiences
  with trained teachers lead by CBF, many in
  priority areas
• B-WET funded DEQ project to work with schools
  directly (10 schools per year for three years)
• VDOE secured the next cycle of Learn and Serve
  for EE (approx. 400 k for the next three years)

12
Probing and Protecting the Chesapeake Watershed
Bay Watershed Education Training Fairfax County
Public Schools Middle School Science Program
13
Background Information

• Fairfax County is a large district with nearly
  15,000 Life Science students
• Strong collaborative culture among middle school
  science teachers
• Middle School Science uses a common curriculum
  that is aligned to the Virginia Science
  Curriculum Framework
• Program is inquiry based with extensive
  technology integration

14
Action Plan

• Phase 1
• Create and/or adapt curriculum that incorporates
  SOL 6.7 and meaningful watershed field
  experiences
• Evaluate probeware and other testing materials as
  outlined in Meaningful Watershed Field
  Experiences
• Phase 2
• Collaborate with local government to design
  training for teachers
• Provide interesting hands on training for
  teachers
• Facilitate collaboration and planning at each
  school site
• Phase 3
• Facilitate student field trips (grant funding,
  sites, volunteers, equipment, lessons, training,
  etc.)
• Provide training each year for new teachers

15
Units of Study

• Observing Living Things
• Heredity and Diversity
• Understanding Our Environment

16
Testing the Waters Lesson

• Lesson is designed to be completed through field
  work
• Incorporates all required components of
  Meaningful Watershed Field Experiences
• Problem/inquiry-based
• Use of technology (LabPro, probeware, GPS)
• Analysis of data and subsequent action taken by
  students
• Lesson is part of a substantive unit of study on
  the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed
• Aligned to VA SOL 6.7, LS.6, LS.7, LS.8, LS.9,
  LS.10, and LS.12
• Unit runs from March 1 June 9th

17
School Planning

• Selecting a site at or near the school (provided
  highlighted maps)
• What local experts are available?
• Which resources are needed?
• Field trip forms how many kids will go
  chaperones
• How will you lead up to this field experience?
• How will students apply or take action on what
  they have learned about the health of their local
  stream
• Formulate an Implementation Plan and timeline