Education

EDUCATION RESOURCES

Lesson Plans | Maps | Water-Science Education Sites

A great way to support the Johnson Creek Watershed Council is to get your school involved. Whether or not your school is in the watershed, there are many exciting learning opportunities along Johnson Creek.

JCWC Accepted as Oregon Trout Creates New Education Program: Healthy Waters Institute

Johnson Creek Watershed Council is delighted to report that Oregon Trout has selected the watershed council as one of four pilots in their Healthy Waters Institute (HWI). A little more than a year ago Oregon Trout, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to protect and restore native wild fish and their ecosystems, set out to expand its education program into a statewide student-staffed institute improving education by working with communities to engage students with their home waters.

In its first year, HWI invited four watersheds to act as pilots for the program. A careful selection of urban, rural, wet and dry representatives resulted in the selections of:

the Bear Creek Watershed in the southwest region
the Upper Deschutes watershed in the central/eastern region
the Mary’s River watershed in the Mid-Willamette Valley region
the Johnson Creek watershed in the Portland-metro area

Active cooperation between leaders in the four pilots and the HWI staff has already begun. If you would like to get involved, contact Christine Steele at or Mary Ann Schmidt at maryann.schmidt@ortrout.org.

HWI Journal to be Offered as JCWC Educator Outreach Tool

As a result of the Johnson Creek Watershed Council’s new partnership with the Healthy Waters Institute, the council’s educational program will be transitioning to the HWI model. In keeping with this change, the JCWC will be distributing the HWI Journal to teachers instead of the It’s All Within Your Reach newsletter. This biannual journal is an educational tool complete with teacher inserts that provide suggestions on ways to use Healthy Waters in the classroom. The journal is designed to help educators and their students connect with local waters. The HWI journal will replace JCWC’s It’s All Within Your Reach newsletter, as the new publication for educators from the Johnson Creek Watershed Council.

To request a copy of Healthy Waters, please contact the editor@healthywatersinstitute.org.

Web Resources for Teachers

The lesson plans here are mostly outdoor activities for elementary students, but could be modified to fit any age. The maps range from population distribution to fish passage barriers. And be sure to check out the links to the WWW's best environmental education sites.

The Streamnet Library project has recently cataloged our collection of watershed-related hard-copy resources. Search the JCWC Library for materials that can help your classroom or project.

It's All Within Your Reach is a publication for teachers and educators in the Johnson Creek Watershed.

It's All Within Your Reach, Volume 2, No. 1 [211kb]
It's All Within Your Reach, Volume 1, No. 2 [284kb]
It's All Within Your Reach, Volume 1, No. 1 [507kb]

If you have any questions or lesson plans that you would like to share, please contact us at (503) 652-7477 or . Thank you to the PSU students who collected these valuable resources!

Lesson Plans and Games

Ice Cream Aquifer [145kb]
Invertebrate Lab [76kb]
Photo Journal Essay [158kb]
Park Inventory [93kb]
Seed Hunt [74kb]
Water Temperature [126kb]
Stream Scene
EPA Online Games

Maps

JC Watershed overview map [49kb]	JC sections lost to development [17kb]	JC Watershed neighborhoods [318kb]	JC Watershed photo tour [113kb]
JC salmon observations [17kb]	JC Watershed schools map [154kb]	Springwater Corridor [172kb]	JC sub-watersheds [29kb]

Water Science Education Sites

http://www.greatswamp.org - The Great Swamp Watershed Association provides information on teacher workshops, in-class presentations, free resource materials, and more.
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/ - The Water Science for Schools website, produced by the US Geological Survey, offers information on many aspects of water, with pictures, data, maps, and an interactive center where you can give opinions and test your water knowledge.
http://www.uwex.edu/erc/index.html - The Give Water a Hand website features the national watershed education program designed to involve young people in local environmental service projects. Following steps in the Give Water A Hand Action Guide (download it for FREE!), your class plans and completes a community service project designed to protect and improve water resources.
http://www.epa.gov/teachers/curric-index.htm - The EPA Curriculum, Resources and Activities web-site contains ideas, curricula and activities on a variety of environmental topics. Many links to other helpful guides and activities are provided for Conservation, Human Health, Water, Ecosystems, Waste and Recycling, and Air.
http://water.usgs.gov/wsc/ - The US Geological Survey's "Science in Your Watershed" web-site will help you find scientific information organized on a watershed basis. This information, coupled with observations and measurements made by the watershed groups, provides a powerful foundation for characterizing, assessing, analyzing, and maintaining the status and health of a watershed.
Water: A Never-Ending Story - This web-site provides lesson plans for a two week module on the water cycle intended for students in 3rd and 4th grades. The "Water: A Never Ending Story" module provides activities that will teach the students about each different phase water goes through during the water cycle. It is a comprehensive site that provides teachers background, discussion questions and activities.
http://www.green.org - The Global Rivers Environmental Education Network (GREEN) web-site lists links to other watershed education web sites on the Internet. It provides a list of specific watershed sites as well as water education sites.
http://www.agr.gc.ca/pfra/flash/ - a number of Flash animations, including RoboCow, a great environmental education tool to teach kids and adults about water quality issues in agricultural areas.