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We are all Watershed Stewards Now

Learning Experience 1

Big Ideas

We are all responsible; everything we do and everything we don’t do make a difference.

Summary

Students have the power to act as responsible stewards of our shared resources. Every action adds up. Individual by individual, block-by-block, school by school.

Engage

ENVISIONING THE FUTURE

Ask your students to envision Philadelphia re-designed in a way that works with the natural water cycle in order to protect our source water.
Using the handout linked in materials 6.1 (a black and white graphic from the City’s Greenworks Plan)  and ask the students to find the best practices for a sustainable future and color those in.

These are practices that we can engage in right now to protect our environment. Can they brainstorm others?

Explore and Explain 1

The slide deck lists a number of local and other agencies that are working to protect our watershed.

Assign each team of two or three students an agency/group, include “all of us who live, work and play (residents) in the Delaware River Watershed” as a group.

Give students the attachment to help them organize their notes:  Watershed Organization Research Organizer for Students.

 

Explore and Explain 2

Guiding Question:
What can be learned from examining how others have established and implemented initiatives in their communities? 

 

Working with partners, students examine the following case studies of watershed protection initiatives, using guiding questions to help analyze and categorize what they read. As a class, students compare and contrast the similarities and differences found among communities undergoing the watershed protection process

Case Study #1 Rowing Community Cleans up the River.

Case Study #2 Middle School Students make a “Smart” Rain Barrell.

Case Study #3 Great Lakes Watershed Initiative Case Studies.

Case Study #4  Montessori School, Upper Dublin Pa

Case Study #5  Philadelphia Public Elementary School

Case Study #6  Alpena High School Lake Huron 

Note to teacher: You may give small groups one of the case studies, using them all for comparison; or have all students work together on one.

In a whole class discussion, the case studies are compared as students share their responses to questions, citing similarities and differences.

All the case studies illustrate how various citizens, community groups, and government officials and agencies at the local and national level collaborated and created a better quality of life for their communities. They also illustrate the importance of participating in improving your community and working with local and national groups and government to implement effective change.

Elaborate

SETTING GOALS,  PLANNING AND DOING

DECIDING ON A GOAL AND AN ACTION PLAN

Ask students to choose a goal by majority or consensus.

Brainstorm a list of steps/actions they could take in two weeks and choose one project they are going to implement in that time.

Explain to students that they will need to develop an action plan to meet the goal they have identified, including identifying roles and responsibilities in order to implement an effective action plan.

Next Learning Experience

Teacher Support

Essential Question:
What can we do to protect our Watershed?

Guiding Questions

Engage

What are some way we can protect our watershed?

Explore and Explain – 1

For people in Philadelphia, who ensures our rights to fresh, clean, delicious and safe drinking water?
Who is involved in the planning and implementation?

Explore and Explain – 2What can be learned from examining how others have established and implemented initiatives for their communities?

Elaborate

What goal do we want to work towards?
And how will we get there?

Students will be able to:

Reflect upon the essential question: “What are we going to do to protect our watershed?”

Demonstrate awareness that all human choices contribute to sustainable or unsustainable consequences Use the pledge as an exemplar.

Slide Deck for Unit is under construction

Civic adjective
of or relating to a citizen, a city, citizenship, or community affairs

Leadership noun
the act or an instance of leading

Participate verb
to have a part or share in something

Responsibility noun
the quality or state of being responsible, such as moral, legal, or mental accountability

Rights noun
the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled

Stewardship noun
the conducting, supervising, or managing of something

Implementation noun
an act or instance of implementing something ; the process of making something active or effective

Students will reflect upon the essential question: What are we going to do to protect our watershed?

Reflect in writing: What are 3-5 things you learned from these case studies about how to effectively and sustainably protect our watershed? Provide specific examples of which case studies taught you those things. Determine the central ideas or information of secondary sources (case studies); provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.

Probe and reflect in writing on the goal they are particularly excited about and what it will take to play their unique role in the service of those goals.

PA STEELS Standards

Environmental Literacy and Sustainability

3.4.6-8.G Sustainability and Stewardship: Obtain and communicate information to describe how best resource management practices and environmental laws are designed to achieve environmental sustainability.

3.4.6-8.H Sustainability and Stewardship: Design a solution to an environmental issue in which individuals and societies can engage as stewards of the environment.

Related Standards

ELA RH.6-8.1  Cite specific textual evidence to support analysis of primary and secondary sources.

ELA RH.6-8.2  Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions.

Education for Sustainability

EfS B.10  Local and Global Citizenship – Demonstrate awareness that all human choices contribute to sustainable or unsustainable consequences Use the pledge as an exemplar.

EfS G.7  Inventing and Affecting the Future – Explain how their authentic contribution solves more than one problem at a time and minimizes the creation of new problems.

EfS G.20  Inventing and Affecting the Future – Reflect in writing on the fact that doing things they haven’t done before is what it takes to accomplish their goal, articulate the importance of being able to learn how to do new things when required.

Student Materials

Student Worksheet

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