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The Adopt a River project offers students in grades five through nine the chance to observe the natural environment of a river, analyze some of the water’s parameters (macroinvertebrates, and physical and chemical analysis) and discover the challenges associated with the conservation of a healthy waterway. Adopt a River helps teachers to integrate subjects such as life sciences, ecology, chemistry, computers and English into a concrete and stimulating project. The data collected is distributed to the scientific community and other network members. The Canadian Museum of Nature is the project coordinator for eastern Ontario and the Outaouais.
Website: http://www.nature.ca/rideau/h/h4-e.html
Blue schools provides classroom-ready packages to help teachers with action and awareness activities to enable young Canadians to become better stewards of our watery wonders. Each thematic unit pays tribute to Oceans Day (June 8) and constitutes a long-term lesson plan designed to inform youth about a particular oceans issue, such as sustainability, marine ecosystems, or migratory habitat. It is also a recognition program and provides small amounts of funding to classes/schools to help carry out programs ($200 per class, $500 per school)
Website: http://www.wildeducation.org/programs/blue_school/oceneduc.asp
This program was developed by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources to teach students in kindergarten to Grade 12 (and OAC) about protecting fish and their habitats. There are two resource guides for teachers and youth leaders: one for the primary/junior division and one for the intermediate/senior division. It is designed to complement curriculum guidelines for environmental science, geography, health, history, physical education, mathematics, and science courses. CWF offers a six- to eight-hour training sessions to get started.
Website: http://www.wildeducation.org/programs/fish_ways/fishways.asp
Project H2O is intended for 10–12 year old students. It covers three themes related to the water cycle in an urban environment: (1) water filtration; (2) water usage; and (3) wastewater treatment. It includes video clips to introduce the project and presents the three types of investigation, website and project guide. Results can be entered onto the Project H2O Web site database and can be compared with results from other classes.
Website: http://www.environmentandresources.ca/projh2o/Default.asp?lang=En&n=32FF112A-1
Project WET is a program and a network of coordinators and water educators. It is sponsored by the Canadian Water Resources Association (and possibly Environment Canada). Facilitators can provide informative, interactive and fun workshops for classroom teachers, agency educators, resource managers and others. There is also a six-hour training program for educators to learn about incorporating water science principles into their curriculum. The Project WET Curriculum and Activity Guide is a collection of over 90 hands-on, water resource activities that covers many water related topics including atmospheric, surface and ground water, chemistry, water history, watersheds, wetlands, aquatic wildlife, water quality, water use, water management, water economics, water conservation and water stewardship.
Website: http://www.projectwet.org
Children’s Water Festival (Children’s Water Education Council)
The Water Festival is an annual event, supported by the held in many communities throughout Ontario to teach youth about the importance our water resources. 2007 events are planned in several locations in eastern Ontario: Almonte, Baxter Centre, Upper Canada Village, Casselman. ORK could look at partnering in one or more of these events.
Website: http://www.riverinstitute.ca/festival.htm
Waterscape Posters and Teacher’s Activity Guide (Environment Canada)
A series of Waterscape posters have been developed (Bow River, Vancouver Island, Okanagan, etc) to communicate key messages about water in these regions. A teaching guide has been developed to accompany the poster. I met one of the key people at EC (Bill Taylor) involved with the project and discussed the process required to develop such a resource.
Sample poster: http://geoscape.nrcan.gc.ca/h2o/okanagan/poster_e.php
Biosphère (Environment Canada)
An awesome place, if you haven’t been there – it’s a water museum in Montréal! ORK could possibly fund field trips here.
Website: http://www.biosphere.ec.gc.ca/
Know Your Watershed (Environment Canada)
A web resource to help Canadians learn about their watersheds. They have also developed some tools to help teach about water: Water Use Calculator to calculate and compare personal daily water use total to the national and provincial averages. Water Tips Guide showing ways to reduce water use and waste.
Website: http://map.ns.ec.gc.ca/reseau/en/index.aspx?page=educational
RiverWatch
Alberta RiverWatch helps science classes to explore a 10 km section of their local river during a raft float trip. Along the way, students make shoreline stops to conduct water chemistry and biology tests. Back at school, a website is used to assess the water quality data to answer the question, “How healthy is your river?”.
Website: www.riverwatch.ab.ca
Youth Portal for Water Quality Monitoring (Comite de Valorisation de la Riviere Beauport)
Provides descriptions of monitoring programs that this NGO has carried out (in partnership with Environment Canada, Ministry of Environment Quebec, etc) for fisheries and groundwater monitoring. It also provides a data entry/reporting tool that may be transferable. The coordinators for this project are local.
Website: http://portail.cvrb.qc.ca/1portail/portail_en.html
Every Drop Counts (Alberta Irrigation)
An in-classroom resource for teachers and students will be launched by the Alberta Irrigation Projects Association. This FREE resource is curriculum focused to meet the learning outcomes in the Grade 8 Science Unit on Freshwater Systems. Includes a complete set of approved curriculum materials and resources for Alberta’s grade 8 teachers and students. Dive into this site and swim through our water facts, interactive games and downloadable documents.
Website: http://www.everydropcounts.com/
Rocky Mountain Institute
Website : http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid306.php
Ontario EcoSchools
Website: http://www.yorku.ca/ecoschl/index.asp