The 2017 Forest to Faucet teacher workshop offered two days of hands-on place-based teacher training designed around the children's book My Water Comes from the San Juan Mountains! Participants spent time in the field with expert guest speakers, went on field visits to rivers, reservoirs, and water treatment plants, and learned new student activities using the My Water Comes from the San Juan Mountains book, teaching kit, and curriculum guide.
Traveling from headwaters to intake so that they could better understand the journey detailed in "My Water Comes from the San Juan Mountains", teachers started by examining macroinvertebrates in the Upper San Juan River to assess water quality.
Who participated? Fifteen teachers from seven schools (Dolores Elementary, Juniper School, Bayfield Elementary, Mesa View Middle, Montezuma-Cortez High School, Pagosa Springs Middle, Park Avenue Elementary) and two environmental programs (Audobon Rockies and Ute Mountain Ute Environmental Programs).
Here, teachers use an index to identify the macroinvertebrates they find. The knowledge they gained will help them to teach from the associated "Macroinvertebrate Mania" lesson plan.
Steve Hartvigsen shares a wealth of knowledge from his lifelong service with the USFS. This forest lecture focused on the relationship between forest health and water quality and quantity.
The Forests to Faucets Workshop offers hands-on, relevant activities that equip educators with up-to-date knowledge of local watershed science and provides them with engaging tools for bringing that knowledge back to their classroom.
Upon integration of the curriculum into their classrooms, it is estimated that these teachers will bring watershed science to an additional 300-450 students per year. Additionally, the workshop offers graduate credit (in the form of continuing education credit) from Fort Lewis College, helping to grow the credentials of our local teachers.
By offering this workshop to local educations, F2F build teachers’ capacity for teaching watershed science across the region by providing place-specific knowledge and activities that can easily be integrated in science, math, and social studies curricula.
This program would not be possible without the support of Alpine Bank, The Ballentine Foundation, The Community Foundation Serving Southwest Colorado.
If you're interested in signing up for future F2F workshops, contact amanda@mountainstudies.org.
