Experiential STEM Education is Key to Understanding Connections Between People, Watersheds and Texas’ Economy
Ensuring adequate supplies of clean water for Texas’ economic growth, agriculture, and environment will be the defining natural resource issue of the 21st Century. Nowhere is this challenge more acute than South and Central Texas. But the public lacks understanding of watersheds and the interconnections between people who live in a watershed, their water usage and the health of headwater springs, streams, rivers, bays, estuaries and the ocean. Well-informed citizens are needed to assure that future decisions affecting water use and watersheds are sound and sustain Texans and the Texas economy. H2O will help meet this challenge in an unprecedented effort to engage young Texans in a learning process that will prepare them to be informed and constructive participants in future decisions as citizens, voters, and water users.
H2O is an inquiry-based STEM environmental educational experience that uses advanced digital interactive learning opportunities designed around the theme of “Headwaters to Ocean” as well as hands-on outdoor education opportunities designed to complement and leverage existing programs.
Features include innovative curricula, materials, and delivery methods that will use emerging web-based and mobile technologies coupled with time-tested hands-on in-the-watershed experiences for participants in a networked array of schools and education organizations.
Develop programs that foster sound thinking and use new technologies to maintain the attention of today’s students and engage enough people of appropriate ages to ensure Texas’ citizens will make informed choices.
Build upon, link and network successful and progressive educational programs, schools, projects and organizations that can lend to watershed education throughout the project area.
Create outdoor opportunities that further watershed education and add value to existing programs through hands-on field experiences and application of new mobile technologies to aid learning.
Develop and fund technology-based watershed discovery centers that will house advanced educational facilities to uniquely demonstrate the linkages between people and the watershed, from headwater to ocean.
Have you ever seen inside an aquifer? Jennifer Idol has. Not only has she seen inside an aquifer, she has gone deep inside and captured breathtaking images to show the world. A look at this exciting hidden underwater ecosystem will be shown, along with images and descriptions of all Texas’ aquatic ecosystems, in new textbooks, teacher’s guides, [...]
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Chapters 11 thru 14 of the Aquatic Science Education Guides for Texas Texas are now ready for review by Texas educators interested in water and aquatic science. Please go to the following website to download: http://www.aquaticedguides.org/ In particular, teachers are invited to submit hands-on classroom and field activities that relate to the topics covered in [...]
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Water Is Life (Click on picture to view video) The first rough cut video for the Aquatic Science Education Guides is available for viewing and comment. Each chapter of the Aquatic Education Guides will have a specially produced video enhancement that ties to the student textbook and to the teacher’s guide. This initial video is [...]
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Experiential education research at watershed locations and visits to science centers, such as to the San Marcos River (Aquarena) headwaters discovery center, provide exciting experiential learning opportunities for students. Soon to be published research results by H2O project co-director, Andrew Sansom, show experiential education at the headwaters works for students and teachers. Most students’ understanding [...]
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Chapters 7 thru 10 of the Aquatic Science Education Guides for Texas are now ready for review by Texas educators interested in water and aquatic science. Please go to the following website to download: http://www.aquaticedguides.org/ In particular, teachers are invited to submit hands-on classroom and field activities that relate to the topics covered in Chapters [...]
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Randall Maxwell selected to produce videos for Texas Aquatic Science Education Guides. With over 20 years experience in both television and non-broadcast video production, Maxwell has worked with a diverse group of professionals from various industries and cultures. He is a former producer with the Texas Parks and Wildlife television series, and worked as editor [...]
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International Water Priorities and H2O featured at the meeting of four major groups dedicated to the long-term sustainable use and conservation of the Gulf of Mexico. In February, scientists at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies (HRI) hosted a meeting that included scientists and researchers from both Texas and Mexico. Representatives came [...]
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App for Aquarena Education now available free. To get the App go to the iTunes App Store and search for “Aquarena.” Or, come visit the springs and download the App on site. http://www.aquarena.txstate.edu/ See the App in iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aquarena/id594300970?mt=8 The “Aquarena” App was developed for use in outdoor water education at Aquarena Springs, at [...]
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New Teaching with the Stars teacher instructional unit on bays and estuaries, titled “Tidewaters” ready for use. The new Tidewaters unit was funded by H2O. Teaching with the Stars is designed to provide systematic professional development in geography to middle and high school teachers. It emphasizes pedagogical knowledge and skills as well as content knowledge [...]
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Dr. Sandra Johnson is tapped to oversee teacher guide and student activity development for the Aquatic Science Education Guides for Texas. SANDRA JOHNSON PH.D. is an educational consultant who specializes in curriculum writing and alignment with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). In addition, she is a professional development specialist for teachers in science. [...]
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Texas Science Teachers Please Review Aquatic Science Education Guides http://www.aquaticedguides.org/ We invite teachers and others interested in aquatic science education for Texas’ middle and high school students to review and comment on the draft guides, as well as submit their favorite aquatic science-related activities to include in the guides. All contributions will be acknowledged. To learn [...]
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Headwaters to Ocean’s (H2O) Dr. Rudy Rosen will author new Aquatic Science Education Guides for Texas. RUDOLPH “RUDY” ROSEN, Ph.D., is a research professor at The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, Texas State University and a Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He is [...]
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Technology enhancements include state-of-the-art aquarium at Texas State University’s Meadows Center An Aquarena Center aquarist readies a new aquatic species exhibit in Discovery Hall. Destined to be a centerpiece of technology enhancements now underway at Aquarena Center, the new aquarium will be the first education exhibit to greet visitors as they enter the newly renovated [...]
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Aquatic Science Education Guides to be developed by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and H2O partners, the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies and The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment. Aquatic science education guides covering Texas’ headwaters to the ocean will be developed for use by middle through high school students along [...]
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First ever STEM Corps class held for students in the nation’s largest Job Corps training center Twenty Job Corps students from the nation’s largest Job Core training center, the Gary Job Corps in San Marcos, Texas, became the first ever STEM Corps class on October 23, 2012. The students traveled to the campus of Texas State University and the Meadows Center for Water [...]
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