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Spotlight - Discovery Watersheds: Pennsylvania 4-H Water Project Curriculum Series
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Are you looking for an excellent, hands-on curriculum to teach youth about water? Consider using the Pennsylvania 4-H Program’s Water Project Series. This series of three books make teaching water issues to youth fun and experiential, covering a variety of important topics that not only promote water stewardship, but also help to enhance teaching the state’s academic standards related to water.
Lesson types in these activity books include youth experiments, group demonstrations, and field experiences. Each activity can be done during a single group meeting.
The lessons in this book are based on the principle that children learn best by doing. Some home exercises are included to allow the children to build on the concepts they learn in meetings and to encourage family involvement. The lessons were constructed so that they build upon each other, but various sections and/or activities could be used as stand-alone lessons.
Each of the activity books in this series, along with guide books for the leader/helper can be accessed on the Penn State Extension 4-H website. You can also get printed copies of the youth activity books by contacting the 4-H Educator in your county’s Penn State Extension Office. (Find your county office.)
Unit 1 of the 4-H Water Project, Water Conservation with the Water Lion, is designed to teach youth about water conservation in their communities. Completing the Water Conservation project will open youth’s eyes to the realization that every living thing depends on water, and that it is important for everyone to appreciate and conserve it.
The goal of the curriculum is to help each youth develop “water consciousness” - an awareness of water’s vital importance in our everyday lives. Youth will learn about the many different ways we utilize water each day and the amount of water available on Earth.
Youth will also learn specific ways that they can conserve water including encouraging family involvement in learning about water conservation.
Unit 2 of the 4-H Water Project, Incredible Water with the Water Lion, is designed to teach youth about water itself; it’s existence, properties, states of matter, cycles, and more. Water is a major part of the Earth’s system, which is constantly changing as air, soil, and rocks interact with water every day.
Understanding the basics of water is the key to understanding many of the other things going on in our world, whether that’s our own body systems and those of our pets, livestock, or wildlife; how plants grow to produce food, building materials, fabrics, shelter, and oxygen; how hills and valleys form, glaciers are made, lakes are filled and rivers flow; or how clouds, snow, fog, and rainbows form in the atmosphere.
Completing the Incredible Water project will open youth’s eyes to just how much water affects their everyday lives.
Unit 3 of the 4-H Water Project, Water Quality Matters!, is designed to teach youth about the condition, or degree of cleanliness of water, which is referred to as water quality. Youth will learn about water standards used to set limits for water quality. Youth will investigate what influences water quality and how these substances get into streams and rivers. They will look at the difference between point-source pollution and non-point source pollution.
As youth continue in Water Quality Matters! they will explore where their drinking water comes from, identify different land uses in their watershed, and consider possible pollutants based on land use. With hands on activities youth will use monitoring techniques while learning about the physical, chemical, and biological criteria of water.
Completing the Water Quality Matters! project book will promote interaction of youth in a common effort to increase environmental learning and stewardship of their watersheds.
For more information on protecting your watershed, visit the Penn State Extension Discovery Watersheds webpage.
(Written by: Jennifer Fetter, Extension Educator, Penn State Cooperative Extension in Dauphin County)
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4/18/2011 |
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