Issue Definition
The essential question: What is the Value of Water? for this unit, it could be argued, could be the thread that connects the entire curriculum. Here is your opportunity to initiate this provocative (and fundamental)conversation with your students. From here, students can explore issues related to access to clean water, human rights public health and even public vs private ownership and the cost of clean water.
Outdoor Field Experience
The field experiences in this unit can begin with observations of the natural world and the natural water cycle to elicit questions. From the beginning students will be making a social/emotional connection to water, experienced right away in the station activity in 1.1 from the personal to the global and culminated in the Love Letter or Ode activity. The rest of the unit focuses on how water moves on or through the land to our waterways to build basic content on “what is a watershed”.
Synthesis and Conclusion
Beginning with water in our world and ending with their stream investigations , the message of abundance and diversity and ecological interdependence will emerge. The key will be to allow them to see themselves, not as separate or impacting nature, but part of it.
Environmental Action Project
Consider the writing activity such as the Love Letter to Water or the Ode can be seen as the action project, especially if they read it to each other, post it for others in the school community to read, take it home to share or publish it!