FORE
The Foundation for Ohio River Education is the 501c(3) nonprofit affiliate of the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO). ORSANCO is an interstate commission representing eight states and the federal government, working cooperatively, to protect water quality in the Ohio River Basin. Member states include Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. ORSANCO performs monitoring, assessment, pollution abatement, and public information dissemination to ensure the Ohio River can be used for drinking water after reasonable treatment, industrial supplies, and recreational purposes, as well as, support a healthy and diverse aquatic habitat. ORSANCO provides extensive water quality programs such as source water protection; comprehensive surface water quality monitoring and assessment; aquatic life and habitat monitoring and evaluation; bacteria monitoring; public information; and environmental educational and outreach activities.
Contact Info
Website: www.riverlearning.org
Educator: Nicholas Callahan,
Environmental Education and Outreach Coordinator
Phone: 513-231-7719
Email: ncallahan@orsanco.org
Organization Offerings
We offer floating classroom programs that provide students with the experience of being a river scientist for the day through observations, chemical sampling, and biological sampling on a riverboat (4th-College) or canoes (High School and College only). We also offer in-class presentations on water quality and aquatic biology that can be geared toward state standards for any grade level. We also offer two Ohio River Basin wide programs: Riverwatchers, our citizen science program that sends water quality kits to your classroom and provides teacher training, and Ohio River Sweep, our litter cleanup program that provides gloves, bags, and shirts to any group wanting to do a cleanup within the basin.
Grades, Ages Served
4th grade and older
Middle School
High School
Adult
Home School
Counties Served
All counties within the Ohio River Basin in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York.