YOUTH EDUCATION

Sedimentation is one of the Illinois River Watershed’s top pollutants (along with nutrients). This lab discusses features of erosion, mechanics behind it, and why accelerated erosion driven by human impact affects everything from landowners to the entire freshwater ecosystem. Lesson plan options provided range for time and standards of your choice.

Our water resources are working under the surface, and this lab explores it all! Make a model to showcase how surface water and ground water interact within the Karst geology of the Ozarks and how this unique system affects the our water quality - specifically with pollution.

This nature scavenger hunt gets young explorers to observe the world around them. This is also a great tool for ESL students, accommodation option, or early childhood version of the Nature Hike. Using the workbook, students will search a local green/blue space to find colors in the world around them, regardless of the season!

This nature journaling template is a great outdoors activity for students in middle school to high school. Every class from creative writing to science can learn how to start a nature journal, and most importantly, learn how to be an observer of the world around you.

Students will collect live macroinvertebrates from a river or stream. They will then classify and count the invertebrates and use that data to estimate water quality and health of the freshwater ecosystem.

Tragedy of the Commons is an environmental phenomenon in which individuals with access to a shared resource act in their own interest, resulting in degradation. Students will learn by experience just how easily this happens and will work as a community to create a best management practice.

Students will gain an understanding of what a watershed is - the land and resources that define it - as well as create their own watershed. Middle/Junior and High school student will utilize software to analyze land use within their own watershed - the Illinois River Watershed!

In this lesson, students will be given a hypothetical amount of money and a section of riverfront property that they can do what they choose to with. They will draw and describe what they chose to do with the land and then arrange their drawings together to form a river. Students will then describe the impact of their landuse on their neighbors downstream as they pass items that represent pollution downstream.

This scenario-based lesson will ask students to analyze the water quality of a stream section in order to determine if the stream is impaired for certain parameters. In-field water chemistry kits will be brought into the classroom and students will learn the techniques used to determine water quality. Parameters include Dissolved Oxygen, Phosphorus, Nitrate, pH, and Alkalinity.

This gallery walk style lesson will teach students about various types of pollution to our watersheds. A student led demonstration will show how pollutants flow through a landscape to one point. Then students will analyze a “water sample” to determine the greatest source of pollution in order to develop a solution to that type of pollution.