ZOOM Meeting Recap and the Field Workshop

 

      I wanted to briefly review some of the key points from our first ZOOM meeting this Wednesday, April 14.  We now have 17 educators involved in the grant.  In addition to the folks who attended we also have a teacher from Stafford County Schools and an educator from Fredericksburg SPCA joining the project - and a second teacher from Spotsylvania Schools. 

     The next event will be the onsite workshop at the Crow's Nest Research Center.  The workshop will take place on May 8, from 9:00 a.m. through 1:30 p.m.  This workshop will include:

• A hands-on introduction to Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences (MWEEs) provided by educators from the Friends of the Rappahannock
• A hands-on introduction/field practice session on Nature Journaling and the model described on this website under the Nature Journaling tab
• Distribution/discussion of the grant materials - also described on this website

     We'll be sending out additional information, including directions to the site, the week before the meeting.  To help make the workshop more meaningful, here are a few things you can do:

• Look through the Nature Journaling model (see the link on the Nature Journaling tab on this website.
• Give the model a try - choose a plant, bug, or even a pet and come up with some questions, do some close observation and record your findings in a sketch or two and a few sentences, and record what you found out about the object during the process.
• Think about how you might get this journaling model to work in your classroom.  How would you get your kids started? What kinds of prompts would you provide?  What format would be best for your student's journals - lined paper, plain, graph, a mix?  One way to help your students think of questions might be to have them come up with an interview format.  You'll find a good description of this strategy on the Nature Journaling tab.
• Bring your results to the workshop so we can share some ideas.  

NOTE:  You don't have to try this with your class at this point.  This is just a way to get you thinking about the journaling model and try it out. If you do try it with some kids that's great - please be ready to share. 

     We have a lot of great information about Watersheds and MWEE's on the MWEE tab on this site.  You can take a look at these resources if you're interested, but for now you can wait until after the Friends of the Rappahannock workshop to dive into these materials.