The Watershed Project

      At Chimacum Middle School, the 6th grade is taken on a week long camping trip to Cispus Camp near Mt. Saint Helens. This trip is a tradition that Chimacum Middle School has been following for the past 15 years. At camp Cispus, students are taken on hikes and challenge courses as they form lasting relationships with each other, their high school counselors, and their teachers. The 6th grade science curriculum includes a study of watersheds and their neighboring ecosystems, and volcanoes. Watersheds and volcanoes are the first topics studied in science in the 6th grade because it leads to the Cispus trip which happens on the third week of school. On the Cispus hikes, students study the woods that surround the camp including a nearby river and pond.

      I’m following the Global Schoolnet’s project information format to cover the specific details of this project:

Project Information
Project Title: Our watersheds and their ecosystems.

Project Begin & End Dates: 10/01/98 to 12/01/98 (it can go on all year though and the web site still will be open and available all year)

Project Summary:
In Jefferson County, Washington, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) made a decision to poison a thriving northern pike community in a lake where the pike were endangering the indigenous steelhead trout and coho salmon. The pike were planted in the lake illegally and had to be dealt with fast. In so poisoning, the WDFW managed to harm many steelhead and coho when the currents unexpectedly carried to the poison to the neighboring creek. In this study, students will study their neighboring watersheds and the ecosystems they support to learn what damage, pollution or poisoning of one part of the watershed will have on the bigger picture.

Students will post their findings to the Project Watershed web site and read the findings of students in other areas. The hoped-for outcome of this project is to make our children aware of how fragile our watershed ecosystems are and how damaging one lake or pond, or worse, a river, could have harmful effects on the wildlife and the people living there.

Project Level: Basic to intermediate

Curriculum Fit: Community Interest, Information Technology, Language, Science, Technology.

Technologies Used: Email, Web Form, and CU-SeeMe wrap-up and/or discussion forum if scheduling a CU-SeeMe is impossible.

Project Email Address: al_gonzalez@chimacum.wednet.edu

Registration Instructions: Email Al Gonzalez at al_gonzalez@chimacum.wednet.edu

Registration Status: Open

Registration Acceptance Dates: 9/01/98 to 10/30/98

Number of Classrooms: Any

Age Range: 10 to 15 years

Target Audience: Middle School students and their community

Project URL: http://educatoral.com/classpages/watershed.htm

Full Project Description:
Goals -
1. Learn what a watershed is.
2. Learn where your area’s watersheds are, leading into ponds, lakes, streams, rivers, inlets, or bays.
3. Learn what happens if we poison any part of a watershed and how the water will travel and harm the neighboring ecosystems.
4. Brainstorm solutions.

Objectives -
[Note: Students should be broken up into teams to complete the following objectives.]
1. Read this project's background story and follow the links to get all the information.
2. Search the web for information on your city's or county's watersheds.
3. With your teacher's help, contact a representative in your community or your county via email or by postal mail to see if you can get some topographical maps or any other maps of your area's watershed.
4. While you are waiting for a response, acquire some maps of your area on your own. Street maps or county maps will do.
5. Figure out by looking at the different elevations in your area, which way water flows when it rains.
6. Spot any streams, rivers, ponds or lakes in your area.
7. With your teacher's help, figure out what types of ecosystems are found around around any of the streams, rivers, ponds or lakes you spotted in your area.
8. Think about and discuss what will happen if poisons or other types of pollution are deposited in different parts of your town, city or county.
9. Finally, answer the online project questions. (All responses will be added to the project web page.)

Project Sponsor: No Sponsorship

Project Contact Information:
Al Gonzalez at Chimacum Middle School, al_gonzalez@chimacum.wednet.edu

Assessment rubric:
4 - Online project answers show that the student team completed all of the eight objectives of this project. Questions are answered in an intelligent, well thought out, manner with minimal spelling and grammatical errors.

3 - Online project answers show that the student team completed five or six of the eight objectives of this project. Most of the questions are answered intelligently with only a few spelling or grammatical errors. Any spelling or grammatical errors do not take away from the overall writing.

2 - Online project answers show that the student team completed only four or less of the eight project objectives. Questions are answered in a rushed, not well thought out fashion. There are enough spelling and grammatical errors as to make the answers difficult to understand.

1 - Online project answer show liitle proof that the student team did any of the eight project objectives. Questions are answered very poorly and/or with many spelling and grammatical errors.

EALR Alignment:
Science 1.3 - Understand that interactions within and among systems cause changes in matter and energy.

Life Science Benchmark - Interdependence of life: describe how an organism's behavior and ability to survive is influenced by its environment, other life forms, and availability of food and/or other resources.

Life Science Benchmark - Environmental and resource issues: know humans and other living things depend on the natural environment, and can cause changes in their environment that affect their ability to survive.

Communications 2.1 - Communicate clearly to a range of audiences for different purposes.

Benchmark 2 (Grade 7) - Communicate with an expanding range of audiences such as community members and voice-mail.

Benchmark 2 (Grade 7) - Communicate for a range of purposes for example, to inform, explain, persuade, or entertain.

Communications 2.2 - Develop content and ideas.

Benchmark 2 (Grade 7) - Choose content appropriate to own purposes and interests and needs of an audience.

Benchmark 2 (Grade 7) - Develop a rational argument.

And as a collaborative project, the Commission on Student learning identifies seven essential learnings for Technology which are all pertinent in this project. They are as follows:

1.The student as information navigator.

2.The student as critical thinker and analyzer using technology.

3.The student as creator of knowledge using technology, media and telecommunications.

4.The student as effective communicator through a variety of appropriate
technologies/media.

5.The student as a discriminating selector of appropriate technology for specific purposes.

6.The student as technician {as when troubleshooting glitches along the way}.

7.The student as a responsible citizen, worker, learner, community member and family member in a technological age.