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At the end of June 2013
eight teachers got together for a professional development workshop
to learn how to bring authentic, real time scientific data to their students.
The "Data and the Estuary" workshop is designed for middle school and high
school teachers.
The workshop was led by the education program at the Chesapeake Bay National
Estuarine Research Reserve
Maryland as well as the staff at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources,
Anita Leight Estuary Center, the Patuxent River Park,
and the Jug Bay Wetland Sanctuary.
While on the estuary, teachers received background on the overall Chesapeake Bay
ecosystem, its cultural history, and current human development trends along the estuary.
"There is a line of townhomes, and if you got up just a little bit further you would see the sewer line crossings..."
"...behind the Home Depot, which was built on filled in marsh."
Teachers participated in the workshop by keeping the driving question in mind,
How do we study changes in the Chesapeake Bay and the broader environment
and what do the changes mean?
Teachers learned how to access, collect and analyze real-time data
that they can introduce into their classrooms.
The week-long workshop further enabled teachers to utilize tools and curricula
that support the environmental literacy requirements in Maryland.
Teachers learned how to gain access to the monitoring data from the twenty-eight
National Estuarine Research Reserves around the United States.
"So, the information that we collect here in Maryland is also collected in Alaska. It's also collected in..."
Oregon. It's also collected in Washington and the precincts of California,"
"Florida, Gulf of Mexico."
And all along the Carolinas."
teachers also found fun ways to engage students in water quality
issues, such as the game: Water Quality Limbo.
"We'll pick a card..."
"...and it's up to the group..."
..."to establish whether that will improve or degrade water quality."
"If it improves water quality, the limbo bar goes..."
"...up one notch."
"If it degrades, then it's going to go down."
With hands-on field-based investigations, teachers and staff
work together and share ideas on how they can support meaningful interaction
with estuaries
and the waterways that feed into them in Maryland's youth.