Skip to content
The Bay Backpack logo. A school backpack followed by a stylized writing of the words Bay Backpack.

Get Back to School AND Back to the Bay

by
Sarah Brzezinski

Over the summer, how many of your students do you think experienced the Chesapeake Bay watershed? Whether they know it or not, I‘d bet it was all of them!

As you try to get your class in the routine of being back in school over the coming weeks, your students will probably be a bit fidgety and will want to talk to their friends about what they did over the summer. Here is a radical idea: let them! Fishing, crabbing, boating, paddling and swimming in the Bay and its tributaries are pretty obvious connections, but the watershed is literally right in all of our backyards. Just walk out your door and you are all set for an adventure in a Chesapeake forest, meadow, city or town. Ask what your students did this summer and help them see how their activities connect to our region’s rich history, diverse culture, and iconic environments. These discussions will be a great way to launch into a lesson about the Chesapeake Bay. You can get your students back to school AND back to the Bay by:

  1. Learning why YOU should teach about… : Why should you teach about watersheds, bay grasses, brook trout, and more? Find out with this blog series! Each blog focuses on a different topic, explains why it is important, why you should teach about it, and how you can teach about it. New content is regularly being developed and each blog provides some great teacher resources and lesson plans.
  2. Mapping your way through the Chesapeake Bay: National Geographic FieldScope is a web-based mapping, analysis, and collaboration tool designed to support geographic investigations and engage students as citizen scientists investigating real-world issues – both in the classroom and in outdoor education settings. In this project, students throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed collect, compare, and analyze water quality data (including quantitative measurements, field notes, photos, and video) from a local stream in order to understand and protect the resources in and around the Bay.
  3. Getting your environmental education project funded: As you head back to school this fall, be sure to keep grant opportunities in mind. Here is a list of some grants with application deadlines in September and early October that could be used to help support your Chesapeake Bay watershed field studies, environmental education projects, or school greening activities. Check them out, and good luck with your applications!
  4. Building your own watershed: This EPA experiment describes how to make a watershed model and illustrates some of the basic properties of a watershed, including how water flows from higher elevations to lower elevations, how the placement of buildings, roads, and parking lots can be important to watershed runoff, and how careless use and disposal of harmful contaminants can have a serious effect on downstream watershed denizens. The Izaak Walton League of America also provides instructions for how to build a watershed model.
  5. Engaging in Chesapeake Exploration: NOAA’s Chesapeake Exploration is a new and innovative collection of online activities for middle and high school students that bring the science of the Chesapeake Bay to life. Inside a virtual classroom, Chesapeake Exploration guides students through an engaging investigative process that explores natural and human systems and cycles and the ways in which they interact throughout the Bay and its watershed. Chesapeake Exploration gives teachers and students unprecedented access to lessons designed around real-time observational data from the Chesapeake Bay Interpretive Buoy System.
  6. Discovering the Chesapeake Bay online: The Chesapeake Bay Program’s website is a great informational resource for your students to access. The website will allow your students to get background information about the Bay, learn about the issues and challenges it is facing, track the progress towards restoration, and take action themselves. The Chesapeake Bay Program also recently suggested eight ways to access the Chesapeake Bay from your desk (or your school computer lab)
  7. Investigating coastal issues with Estuaries 101 Curriculum: The goal of Estuaries 101 is for students and teachers throughout the nation to become more ocean literate through increasing their knowledge of coastal and estuarine science and how estuaries affect their daily lives. These NOAA curriculum guides have been developed for use with middle school and high school audiences. All of the lesson plans are relevant to the Chesapeake, but many call it out exclusively.
  8. Easing back into the classroom – or out of it – with field studies: There is information for more than 300 field studies in the Chesapeake Bay watershed available on Bay Backpack. From stream water quality monitoring to restoration activities, lab visits and wildlife tours, there is something available for all age groups to get outdoors.
  9. Making it a MWEE: Though your students may have been out and about in the Bay watershed this summer, as an educator, you can provide them with a truly Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE). A MWEE is an investigative or experimental project that engages students in thinking critically about the Bay watershed. MWEEs are not intended to be quick, one-day activities; rather, they are extensive projects that allow students to gain a deep understanding of the issue or topic being presented. Students participate in background research, hands-on activities and reflection periods that are appropriate for their ages and grade levels. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Guide to Creating Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences (see link above) is a great place to start, or you can learn more about MWEEs from the Chesapeake Bay Program.
  10. Finding the perfect lesson plan: This searchable inventory includes over 750 teacher resources and lesson plans related to the Chesapeake Bay. With content available for early learning through high school audiences, spanning subject matter from art to math and beyond, you are sure to find something great.