TRIBUTARIES OF LIFE: A WATERSHED INQUIRY

Introduction
This watershed course for teacher professional development is place-based and hands-on in nature and is appropriate for international audiences. It is NorthBay’s renowned watershed field course for teachers packaged into an online format. A variety of learning pedagogies are used to provide a holistic, integrated, engaging experience. It is designed for teachers of all academic disciplines in sixth through twelfth grades.

What You’ll Learn
Teachers will increase their freshwater ecology knowledge and learn how to facilitate student-directed watershed inquiry that includes action projects.

What You’ll Do
Participants in this course will practice sensory-based activities outdoors and keep a journal to record their reflections. Participants will read, watch videos and conduct fieldwork to learn essential watershed content. Using scientific protocols, participants will conduct research and use their findings to develop an action plan.

What You’ll Learn
Teachers will increase their freshwater ecology knowledge and learn how to facilitate student-directed watershed inquiry that includes action projects.

Course Outcomes
This course is designed to provide everything teachers will need to feel confident and inspired to take their students outside to conduct research at a local stream, river or school yard. In addition to conducting inquiry, teachers will learn how to conduct meaningful action with their students. Teachers will find inspiring stories about classes who have leveraged research findings into solutions for local stream/river issues, and shared them with their communities. This last step of action demonstrates to the rest of the community what is possible.

Tributaries of Life: Summer Weeklong

This is a 45-hour weeklong residential program based at NorthBay Adventure Camp on the spectacular shores of the Chesapeake Bay in North East, Maryland. We will teach freshwater and estuarine ecology using an inquiry/problem-based instructional model and operate within the framework of statewide/national education standards. We will interweave sensory-based reflective practices and character reflection* to complement, extend, and amplify these ways of knowing. And. . . . we will have FUN!

Tributaries of Life: School-Year Weeklong

This 30-hour program is for teachers visiting with their students during NorthBay’s residential student program. Teachers participating in this program will receive in-depth instruction in inquiry/problem based learning in and around the spectacular Chesapeake Bay. Classes with students are woven into the professional development sessions so teachers will have the opportunity to immediately implement what they learn while at NorthBay. One follow up meeting will be scheduled to check in and to provide support.

Professional Development Credit: Available. Maryland teachers will receive 2.0 CPD credits and Pennsylvania teachers will receive 1.0 professional development credits upon completion of the weeklong in-residence program and follow up meeting.
Dates: Throughout the school year
Notes: Minimum number of teachers per session = 10.

Upriver

The UPRIVER curriculum is a multidisciplinary inquiry into what it means to be global water citizens. Video clips from the UPRIVER film are embedded in a map of Oregon to engage students with stories. The curriculum shows students the power and influence they have when they operate from the perspective of living upriver. “UPRIVER” is a mindset from which students can make positive decisions that influence what happens downstream, rather than being disempowered downstream inhabitants reaping the negative results of decisions made by others. The video stories take place in the headwaters, mainstem, and riparian regions of the Willamette River, Oregon. While the stories are specific to Oregon, they highlight universal themes. Some of the same stories, albeit with different characters, are playing out in watersheds all over the world.