Groton-Dunstable Middle School

Rosemary Brandi-Hefele PALMS Curriculum Leader

Project: The River Classroom: Experiential River Education

Description of the Project:
An interdisciplinary river and water resource awareness unit for 200 seventh grade students attending GDRMS and a preceding three-day workshop for 7 teachers. Both students and teachers will be immersed in riparian issue through hands-on experiments, field studies, wildlife surveys, canoeing, lectures, debates, and slide shows. The unit, with a focus on science, geography, history, and government, will stress the tremendous importance of our rivers and their adjoining greenways as a resource. The students will build on this one-week experience through the year, educating fellow students, parents, and community members to the importance of greenways and river resources. The project will encourage environmental careers as well as continuing environmental education at GDRMS.

Purpose:
To educate a new generation of local citizens capable of making informed decisions regarding the preservation of rivers and watershed basins, through an increased awareness of their local river environment, i.e. the Nashua River and its environs, as a critical natural resource.

State Curriculum Frameworks Learning Standards:
This project reflects the Vision, Guiding Principles, and Habits of Mind described in the Content Chapters of the Mathematics and Science and Technology Curriculum Frameworks. The River Classroom addresses page 63, Strand2 0f Life Science: Ecosystems and Organism. This project also makes use of "Benchmarks On the Way to Environmental Literacy" developed by the Massachusetts Secretaries Advisory Group on Environmental Education stressing that:

* Learners can demonstrate knowledge of the basic concept of an ecosystem, its biological and physical components.
* Learners can identify and describe several of the interacting systems that make up their biophysical and social environments.
* Learners can describe an environmental change and give a consequence of that change.
* Learners can identify a community environmental problem and propose a solution for that problem using information collected to support his or her proposal.
Groton-Dunstable Middle School's Curriculum Objectives:

Student

* To develop within the student population an understanding of rivers and greenways.
* To assist students in comprehending the relationship of a healthy riparian environment, including water quality and wildlife habitat, to the quality of a community's daily life.
* To enable students through field experiences to make informed decisions about river protection issues.
Teachers
* To be able to promote ongoing integration of environmental education issues and values into the standard curriculum, especially those relating to rivers and watersheds.
Community
* To engage the Groton Dunstable Community through outreach strategies, such as press releases, presentations, and parental involvement.
Enabling Activities:
The means to implement the project have already proven effective in pilot river programs in Groton and on a larger scale in other states. The components are:
 
1. An in-depth teacher training workshop (three days , led by Terry Monette a coordinator who has successfully implemented a similar river program.)
2. Field and river studies dealing with issues of water quality, and wildlife habitat.
3. Experiments and discussions in class that will foster critical thinking and decision-making on river issues.
4. Lectures and demonstrations by experts in the field of water and river restoration.
5. Use of a rich collection of river studies including "Expedition-Based Education, Monoosnoc Brook Outdoor Classroom, and Hands On Save Our Streams." These are just a few of the resources available. Students and teachers will be encouraged to utilize web sites such as "Watershed" at the University of Massachusetts and electronically explore all that is available, including E-mail to other middle schools with interests in watershed projects.
6. Nashoba Paddler will provide canoes, canoeing guides and instruction for both the teacher training, and for the five canoeing days planned for students in Sept.
Products:
Although the restoration of the Nashua River is nationally acclaimed, very little is ever done within the local public school to take advantage of this tremendous outdoor classroom/laboratory resource. This will be an opportunity to engage students in an integrated, inquiry based, hand-on cooperative learning experience that will connect them with that resource, their environment, and the community in which they live. The teachers in this project are as much learners as the students, and will be involved with self-directed research. This research is real and concrete and will serve to enhance all types of classroom experimentation and research throughout the school year. The participants will share their findings with peers, families, and the community.

Evaluation plan to measure effectiveness:

* A synopsis of the workshop and the course will be written by participating teachers.
* Students will keep a journal during the week and write a paper based on their "new" knowledge.
* Students will again be asked at the end of their school year to write to directed questions, or set up and run experiments in order to gauge the continued impact of the experience.
* Students will create a display in the lobby of their school demonstrating what they've learned.
* A presentation on the importance of rivers will be put together for the students' families and community.
Summary:
As we move to expand this program beyond the 7th grade to other grades in the system ( under consideration are Vernal Pools for 6th grade and wetlands Stewardship for 8th) the program will be modified according to input from students, parents and teachers. It will become important for a program such as this to become economically self-sustaining, and integrated into the culture of our school. It is our hope that this project will serve as a model for other schools and communities to become involved in the issues surrounding the Nashua and its tributaries. Critical to the development of this kind of education is communication technology which will allow our teachers and students to take advantage of the considerable state and federal data and resources available.
 

Nashua River Basin Map