Day+5+-+Integrating+into+the+Curricula

Amazing how quickly the week went! Today we caught up on some of the things that we still needed to finish - a geology overview of the Raritan Watershed, calculating the pollution tolerance of Duke Brook and the tying things together to start figuring out how to implement what we learned into next year's curriculum.


 * 1) Geology**

Its All in a Name (Bridges to the Natural World). For this activity we looked at rocks from the region. Each small group had to list their rock's characteristics and then give the rock a name based on those characteristics. Afterwards each group/person wrote a "rock" haiku. This is a great way to get students to observe...not interpret. No scientific terms allowed!

Share your rock name and haiku.

Michael gave a great summary of New Jersey's geology in about 1/2 hour and how the Raritan Watershed was formed. Download his powerpoint.



After our field experience on Wednesday and our tallying of macroinvertebrates, we calculated the pollution index of Duke Brook as 2.7 which means it is Fair to Good.
 * 2) Pollution Tolerance Index - (A Look at the Bottom Dwellers from NJ WATERS)**

Think about doing the "paper" version of this activity in the classroom to help prepare your students for a field experience.


 * 3) Looking at the Raritan Watershed BIG PICTURE.** Teachers were asked to think about all their experiences during the week and design a concept map that shows all the various ways that one could learn more about the Raritan Watershed and all the different ways one could teach about these various aspects. See how each teacher group tackled this activity. Click on one of the links below.


 * By doing this activity BEFORE creating curricular links it makes it easier to see where cross curricular applications are possible because of the interdisciplinary nature of ecosystems study AND it can show how using the environment (in this case the watershed) can be an integrating context for teaching core content standards. **


 * 4) A Recap of the Week - without music :)** A couple of photos had to be removed in order to meet the mg. limit on the wiki site. If there are specific photos you want, contact me and I will send them separately.