Cascadia Conservation District

Person pulling up a rock in river

Watershed Wonders

Watershed Wonders

Kids In The Creek

Watershed Wonders serves as the day’s closing activity, requiring students to draw upon their newly acquired knowledge. After completing the six previous stations, students stay in their group for a simulation of the land use planning process. Each student team assumes a land use scenario (agriculture, urban development, or recreation) and presents reasons why their land use recommendation should be accepted to a panel of County Commissioners.

WA SCIENCE Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs): 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2

Objectives:
Students will be able to:
  • Investigate the watershed concept using local maps and data
  • Predict how specific land uses will impact water quality
  • Demonstrate an understanding of community processes, including competition for limited resources
Concepts:
  • Watershed
  • How land uses affect water quality
  • Competition for resources
  • Differing perspectives
  • Importance of issue awareness and steps to community involvement

For Teachers:

Classroom Pre-work Activities: Field Day Materials

For Activity Leaders:

  • Training Video above – Information about Watershed Wonders is provided in the Introductory Video.
  • Watershed Wonders Equipment and Procedure Guide (PDF)- An equipment checklist and procedure guidelines for this station (will be added soon!).
  • Watershed Wonders Station Script (PDF) – A suggested script for guiding students through this station in the field.
Other Materials:
"All streams are but a tributary to the ocean, which itself does not stream, and the shores are unchanged, but in longer periods than man can measure. Go where we will, we discover infinite changes in particulars only, not in generals."
- Henry David Thoreau