Teacher Resources
Meaningful watershed educational experience (mwee)
MWEEs are learner-centered experiences that focus on investigations into local environmental issues that lead to informed action and civic engagement. Teachers play an important role in presenting unbiased information and assisting students with their research and exploration. Four essential elements and four supporting practices build upon each other to create this comprehensive learning experience for students.
FOUR ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF MWEEs
ISSUE DEFINITION
Students focus on a driving question that addresses a locally relevant environmental issue, problem, or phenomenon requiring background research and investigation. Students learn more about the issue through classroom instruction and by making observations, collecting data, conducting experiments, talking to experts, and reviewing credible publications. They also reflect on personal and public values and perspectives related to the issue.
OUTDOOR FIELD EXPERIENCE
Students participate in one or more outdoor field experiences sufficient to investigate the issue, problem, or phenomenon. Investigations may involve making observations, collecting data, and/or conducting other activities required for answering their questions and informing student actions. To the extent possible and within appropriate safety guidelines, students are actively involved in planning the inquiry that occurs during the outdoor field experience(s). These experiences can take place off-site and on the school grounds.
SYNTHESIS AND CONCLUSIONS
Students identify, synthesize, and apply evidence from their investigations to draw conclusions and make claims about the issue, problem, or phenomenon. Students communicate these conclusions and claims to internal and external audiences in venues that may range from the school classroom to the larger public community.
Students identify, explore, and implement solutions for action. The solutions address conclusions and claims drawn through investigation. Students reflect on the action and determine the extent to which the action successfully addressed the problem, challenge, or phenomenon reflected in the claim. Students may also share proposals for sustaining or extending the action.
FOUR SUPPORTING PRACTICES FOR MWEES
ACTIVE TEACHER SUPPORT
Teacher support is essential for a successful MWEE. Teachers facilitate and continuously support student learning, ensuring that all essential elements of the MWEE come together in support of academic goals. Teachers support students taking an active role in their learning.
CLASSROOM INTEGRATION
MWEEs should be integrated into classroom learning and anchored in curriculum standards. MWEEs should support learning goals and provide an authentic, engaging opportunity for interdisciplinary, cross-curricular learning.
LOCAL CONTEXT
MWEEs should be rooted within a local context to give the students a personal connection to the issue. This establishes life-relevancy and encourages students to explore how their individual and collective decisions affect their community and surroundings are part of a larger environment.
SUSTAINED ACTIVITY
MWEEs are a sustained activity, engaging students from beginning to end. While an outdoor field experience or lesson may occur on just one day, the entire learning experience involves a variety of learning opportunities that spread over one or multiple units.
designing and implementing your mwee
Step 1: think
Big picture questions. Brainstorming a MWEE idea. Developing a driving question. Deciding who can help and how to involve all subject areas.
step 2: plan
Thinking through and planning out the details of the MWEE using the Environmental Literacy Model (ELM). Plan outdoor field experiences and classroom integration.
step 3: evaluate
Reviewing the effectiveness and scope of your MWEE and thinking about how it can be sustained and improved upon
Resources
Lesson Plans and Activities
6th Grade Content Connections Dashboard contains lesson plans for all 6th grade subjects.
Students Collaborating to Undertake Tracking Efforts for Sturgeon (SCUTES) is a website that includes activities and games for students as well as multi-disciplinary lesson plans for teachers centered around the movements, behavior, and threats to shortnose and Atlantic Sturgeon.
Bay Backpack is the one stop shop for all things MWEE including the MWEE Planning Guide, lesson plans for all grades and subject areas, and sample action projects.
Cacapon Institute Potomac Watershed E School is an online school that has activities for students and teachers. It includes MWEE examples and lessons on benthic macroinvertebrates, water chemistry, and how choices we make, and actions we take, impact rivers.
Potomac Highlands Watershed School is filled with wonderful resources, including virtual dipnetting for benthic macroinvertebrates, water quality testing, and a stream assessment. For instructions on how to access the virtual stream experience go here.
Map of Henrico County Parks all of the major and minor parks for Henrico are included; Get out and explore nature at a Henrico Park!
Macroinvertebrate Atlas is an atlas with great pictures of the fresh water macroinvertebrates of the Eastern United States.
Maymont Remote Resources Wetland 360, Videos of Maymont Educators, Choose Your Own Adventure, and More...
Mini Enviroscape Instructional Video and Lesson Plan is a helpful introduction on how mini enviroscapes can be used in your classroom.
Model My Watershed is a watershed modeling app that uses real maps to analyze land use and soil data, model stormwater runoff and water quality impacts, and compare conservation and development scenarios. There is also a stormwater runoff simulator. Both of these apps come with lesson plans and curricula for classroom integration.
River Runner is a website where students can select any location in the United States and it will show the path of a water droplet from that location through the watershed.
Author Ned Tillman's Lecture about how to make a change and his book The Chesapeake Watershed: A Sense of Place and a Call to Action. Ned informs, entertains, and inspires readers with stories of the rich history of this area, growing up around the Bay, and ideas on how you can help restore the bay to the national treasure it once was.
Bridge Ocean Education Teacher Resource Center is a collection of lesson plans, ocean science topics, research and data connections, and a resource center all on the theme of ocean and watershed education.
EPA Wetlands Page has information, lessons, fact sheets, and more about all types of wetlands. It explains what a wetland is, historical significance, water quality monitoring and assessment, and current wetlands protection and restoration efforts.
Data Collection and Analysis
2018 Field Trip Data is the actual data that our HCPS Students collected during their Maymont Field Experience
2019 Field Trip Data is the actual data that our HCPS Students collected during their Maymont Field Experience
Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System (CBIBS) is a series of “smart buoys” that collect data from 10 locations in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Each buoy collects 9-17 data points for each location
Chesapeake Bay Remote Sensing Program is a long-term study of Chlorophyll-a levels in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries, showing primary productivity changes in the Bay over 25+ years.
Digital Coast Sea Level Rise Viewer is a mapping tool to visualize community-level impacts from coastal flooding or sea level rise. Students can zoom in on their neighborhood and see how they could be impacted.
FieldScope allows students to input their own data, show the flow path to the Chesapeake Bay from any selected location on an actual map. Students can zoom in on any location, explore the map, apply filters, and view various data.
Seek by iNaturalist allows students to use their camera phone to identify different organisms and iNaturalist allows student observations to be used by the scientific community.
360 Tour of the James River here students can select locations along the James River and see a 360 photo of locations along the entire River. Additional water locations can also be found.
The State of the James Report is a report card summarizing ongoing efforts to bring the James River back to full health. River Health and River Restoration Progress are examined.
NOAA Webinars
Curriculum Integration Medium to Large School Districts a half an hour webinar about integrating MWEEs into the curriculum for medium to large school districts
Curriculum Integration for Small School Districts a half an hour webinar with a focus on how to implement a successful MWEE in schools
Assessing and Using Data to Support MWEE an hour webinar that focuses on NOAA Resources and Data that is available for schools to use with their MWEEs; Various ways to have students collect data that can be analyzed and its importance is also discussed
Research and Publications
Science Journal for Kids provides peer-reviewed research adapted for student accessibility that is sorted by subject area and reading level.
Science News for Students is an online publication dedicated to providing age-appropriate, topical science news to students, parents, and educators.
Frontiers for Young Minds is an open-access scientific journal written by scientists and reviewed by a board of kids and teens.