The video introduces a set of powerful tools for watershed inquiry. Can you share any specific student projects and experiences so far? What grade level are you designing for?

Richard, This project is working in five research states (CA, IA, KS,PA, and VA) in both middle school and high school classrooms. We are just finishing the initial year of implementation in a total of seventy classrooms throughout these states. In these research states we are collecting data from the Innovative Technology in Science Inquiry portal. However, the Teaching Environmental Sustainability: Model My Watershed portal activities (https://itsi.portal.concord.org/itsi#high-schoo...) are open for any middle school or high school teacher to use. The tools are embedded in the activities and student reports are available for teachers to view once they assign them to their students. The activities have been written for ninth grade implementation, but the portal provides a way for teachers to customize their activities to fit their particular curriculum, student reading level and local needs. Once a teacher signs into the portal (https://itsi.portal.concord.org/), they can use the help support (https://itsi.portal.concord.org/help) to sign in their students and customize the exemplar activities. Carolyn

I’m sure the STEMforAll community here would enjoy any preliminary findings you might be willing to share. The use of hand-held and other software tools for environmental investigations is almost a field unto itself, worthy of further study. (such as Fieldscope, Project Noah, Active Explorer from the AAAS).

This project is fantastic! I am happy to see this program is available for both Android and Apple devices. I could see this program used in after school STEM programs or possibly at a STEM camp. Is there curriculum designed for short term and long term applications?

Ariana, Great question! We are hoping that the student investigations into their local schoolyards parlay into investigations and actions in their local neighborhoods. We hope student’s engagement with the models and the Watershed Tracker around conservation practices extend outside the classroom and into their personal lives. The research on Critical Incidence (CI) (https://concord.org/projects/teaching-environme...) will help us track their use of the resource, models and tools (RMTs) outside of class. Carolyn

Am I right to understand that these tools (or at least the mapping ones) only work for the states in which you’re researching (CA, IA, KS, PA, VA)? I am in AZ and tried the watershed map. I was able to find our location on the map but I couldn’t find a way to identify our watershed boundaries. I’m not sure i it’s because I don’t understand the map, or because it’s not set up for our area.

Carolyn, great video! As I am the coordinator for the California site I am coming into this conversation with a little bias. However, the video here does a great job of showcasing the project. Mostly classroom teachers have participated so far but this coming summer I will be using TES:MMW with a summer class in a rural city in the San Joaquin Valley. Our experience with TES:MMW shows good opportunity for English Learners as well to develop a better understanding of English in the context of the TES:MMW curriculum. We add a trip to the local river for riparian ecology and habitat studies and data collection using the TES:MMW probes, and incorporate the actual data into their use of the online models and curriculum.

We are recruiting for the new cohort this summer so if you know any middle school or high school teachers out this way in California please let them know.

Thank you.

Fascinating project. How do you define systems thinking given that it is defined differently by different people?

What an inspiring project! Its amazing to think about kids working on real geospatial data for earth science – I didn’t work on anything like that till college. Looks like the activity mirrors the real work flow that many earth scientist do with satellite data analisys and modeling

Hi Kathryn – Thank you for the kind words. The goal of the project from the start was to provide students with access to “real science.” This required the use of REAL data, REAL tools, REAL models, REAL places so that students can make informed decisions about their environment. Scientists from the Stroud Water Research Center led the development of the Model My Watershed Application which is intended to be used by students and watershed professionals. If you are interested in more tools developed by Stroud check out http://wikiwatershed.org/

Water monitoring projects have been used for decades, but one huge problem is going beyond simply measuring water quality. This project provides a very convincing context for measurements using powerful technologies. I’d be interested in hearing more about the connections between the water quality measurements and the mapping studies.

It is indeed exciting to see the wonderful ways in which students are engaged and involved! You state that the project is in five states (CA, IA, KS,PA, and VA) in both middle school and high school classrooms. Are you finding differences middle and high school students’ responses to the project? Also, since there is an amazing body of writing on place-based education, I was wondering if you could speak to whether students are sharing their sense of connectedness to their own place and locale because of this project? And, do you notice any differences among students’ expressions/understandings by states? Thank you for sharing this amazing model.

Dr. Williams –
Great Questions! We are in year one of implementation. Teachers are using the project this spring in their classrooms and we are currently collecting data that will speak to these questions. The data analysis won’t begin until summer but we hope to have something to share at AERA and NARST in 2017.