Teacher Testimonials

Are you unsure about how you can use the Virtual Canoe Race in your classroom? Read about how other teachers have incorporated the Virtual Canoe Race into their curriculum, and reach out to us at canoerace@delawareriverkeeper.org if you have any questions.

"Participating in the Virtual Canoe Race works with any class that studies water systems, ecology, biology, geography, and especially any class that is studying and lives in any of the bordering states of which the Delaware is their watershed.

My class was studying Earth’s water and at the same time ocean plastics and how the plastic from the land moves to bodies of water and out to sea. Learning about watersheds and studying our own watershed as a source of these plastics tied all of these ideas together. It was equally meaningful to talk about why it is important to work to maintain a healthy watershed and the connections it has to the health of so many animals and humans. Because our school is close to the river, we were able to participate in a service project picking up trash along the Delaware at Palmyra Cove Nature Park. The VCR became part of this project-based learning lesson and helped bring relevancy to the project.

Question research was assigned in one of two ways.

1. Each week’s questions were assigned as homework over a few nights. Each student then filled their answers in on a multiple-choice Google Form that I created. We spent 20 minutes at the end of the week going through each question and looking at the pie charts that were created in the responses section for each question. If there was not a clear top answer, students were able to defend their answers; oftentimes great discussions came out of these moments.

2. Questions were assigned in class and divided up among the students. Each group had to research the answer to their question then answers were shared as we imputed them on the VCR Google Form."

-Molly C., 2019 Virtual Canoe Race winning teacher