Project WET curriculum and activities for the classroom has been developed by school teachers and education professionals from across the country. The activities, which are constantly being revised and upgraded and enhanced, are field tested and reviewed in hundreds of classrooms nationwide including Colorado, such that each and every component of the program is relevant and current with the needs of our teachers and our students.
Recently, Project WET visited Castle Rock's Meadow View Elementary School's 6B and 6C classrooms, taught by Ms. MaryAnn Caterina and Ms. Shirley Gilbertson. Their 6th graders were taken on a journey as water molecules, utilizing teaching activities such as the Incredible Journey and the Water Model. These activities link kinesthetic learning skills, with children moving around the room rolling dice and collecting beads, with notebooking and intuitive learning methods. No other water education program has the same breadth of learning tools or interactive teaching methods. "Thank you for all Project WET has done for me. Its truly been a blessing to my teaching," Ms. Caterina wrote.
Project WET is scheduled into the other 6th grade classes of Meadow View shortly, as well as Mountain Ridge Middle School and Summit View Elementary School in Highlands Ranch. That will mean that this wonderful program will have touched another 300 Douglas County school children this year.
Noteworthy is that in Aurora, the public school system is embracing Project WET for all classrooms where teachers teach water content. Marilyn Achten and Jennifer Nassar, who are both Science Instructional Coaches for the School District, have been actively linking the District's pacing guides to Project WET curriculum and activities. This linkage helps teacher frame all aspects of the water education effort in terms of school essential learnings and CSAP testing requirements. This is a very powerful tool that is expected to be reproduced in school districts across the Front Range.
Finally, Aurora Water continues to support and host the combined Project WET and Project Learning Tree water and watershed education program "Forests to Faucets". This critically acclaimed program takes teachers into the mountains and to the treatment plant, and everywhere in between, to help them learn about the watershed and water supply from start to finish. Natalie Brower-Kirton is once again teaching this four day course this year in June.
