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.
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 […]
Aquatic Education, Aquatic Science, Ewing Halsell Foundation, H2O, Meadows Center, Rudolph Rosen, STEM, Texas State University
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 […]
Aquatic Education, Aquatic Science, Ewing Halsell Foundation, Fundraising, H2O, Meadows Center, Rudolph Rosen, Rudy Rosen, STEM, Texas State University, TPWD
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 […]
Aquatic Education, Ewing Halsell Foundation, Experiential Education, Meadows Center, Pioneer Foundation, Rudolph Rosen, STEM, water
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 […]
Aquatic Education, Ewing Halsell Foundation, H2O, Harte Research Institute, Meadows Center, Rudolph Rosen, Texas State University, TPWD
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 […]
Ewing Halsell Foundation, Job Corps, Meadows Center, Rudolph Rosen, STEM, Water Education
The Texas Pioneer Foundation has provided a generous grant to The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment for educational improvements to Discovery Hall exhibits at Aquarena Center. Now part of The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, Aquarena Center’s Discovery Hall is playing an ever increasing role in providing innovative technology-enhanced education about […]
Ewing Halsell Foundation, H2O, Meadows Center, Rudolph Rosen, STEM, Water EducationSTEM training for Gary Job Corps students by H2O partner the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment to feature H2O’s water education technology enhancements. The Gary Job Corps is the largest Job Corps center in the United States and houses the largest GED program in the state of Texas. It is situated on 775 […]
Aquatic Education, Ewing Halsell Foundation, Experiential Education, Grosvenor Center, Job Corps, Meadows Center, Rudolph Rosen, STEM
New Meadows Center will focus on water research and water’s relationship with the environment. Texas State’s River Systems Institute was recently renamed “The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment” by the Texas State University System Board of Regents. The reason: A million-dollar gift from The Meadows Foundation that will establish a $10 million center […]
Aquatic Science, Environment, Ewing Halsell Foundation, Meadows Center, Rudolph Rosen, water
CLICK ON PHOTO FOR VIDEO Teachers are provided curricula and teaching enhancements in a new “bays and estuaries” Teaching with the Stars teacher education unit filmed in Corpus Christi, Texas. In this preview, Dr. Larry McKinney, executive director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies describes the productivity of estuaries and the […]
Ewing Halsell Foundation, Experiential Education, Rudolph Rosen, STEM, Teaching with the Stars, Video
New Teaching with the Stars teacher training unit on STEM marine science education. CLICK ON PHOTO FOR VIDEO High school students are featured in a new Teaching with the Stars teacher education unit filmed in Corpus Christi, Texas. Students take a field trip to Goose Island State Park in Aransas Bay to learn about oysters and […]
Ewing Halsell Foundation, Experiential Education, Meadows Center, Rudolph Rosen, STEM, Teaching with the Stars, Video, Water Education
H2O partners, the Harte Research Institute and The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, have proposed a jointly funded project with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to produce aquatic science education guides for Texas’ students and STEM resource guides for teachers. The project would draft and produce aquatic science education guides covering Texas’ headwaters […]
Aquatic Education, Ewing Halsell Foundation, Experiential Education, Rudolph Rosen, STEM, Teacher Training
Experiential education and research interactive kiosks now in aquarium room — Part of Aquarena Technology Integration Test Center at The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment. Through experimentation, evaluation, and research into educational value and cost options, workers supported by H2O are developing suitable cost-effective educational enhancement technology to full-scale in a new major […]
Ewing Halsell Foundation, Experiential Education, Harte Research Institute, Meadows Center, Rudolph Rosen, STEM, Technology
Mobile technology enhanced STEM education workshop shows new directions open to educators. Teachers wanting to place their own educational content on mobile devices, such as iPads and iPhones, participated in a workshop delivered by H2O’s Rudolph Rosen on July 19, 2012. The Welder Wildlife Foundation sponsored the workshop, which was focused on applying technology innovations […]
Ewing Halsell Foundation, Harte Research Institute, Meadows Center, Outdoor Education, Rudolph Rosen, STEM, Teacher Training, Technology
From “mountain top” sinkhole to the headwaters springs feeding the San Marcos River, the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment’s Aquarena Springs presents students, teachers and researches an opportunity to learn about an entire watershed in a compact controlled setting. Students and visitors experience a unique environment where they can tour a complete watershed […]
Ewing Halsell Foundation, Experiential Education, Meadows Center, Outdoor Education, Rudolph Rosen, STEM
A new iPad and iPhone App for use in outdoor education is being built for Aquarena Center, at the headwaters of theSan MarcosRiver, by developers atTexasStateUniversity. The new App will include an identification guide to the common fish, birds, plants and animals that inhabit the springs, wetlands, and adjacent watershed. The App will be available […]
Ewing Halsell Foundation, iPad, Meadows Center, Outdoor Education, Rudolph Rosen, STEM, Technology