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Listening to the River - Innovative Project Imagine groups of interested and curious teenagers wandering along the riverbanks and feeder streams of the Grand Traverse Bay watershed. Picture groups of young scientists using advanced sound recording equipment, digital cameras, video recorders, and global positioning systems to explore, discover, and document the nature of their local watersheds. It was just such a vision that inspired a project called Listening to the River. The Great Lakes Children’s Museum, Interlochen Public Radio, and the Water Studies Institute at Northwestern Michigan College, under the dedicated leadership of the Land Information Access Association, applied for and received a $1.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to put the project into motion. NSF is supporting this unique collaboration because it is an innovative education project that inspires inquiry-based learning and encourages authentic scientific exploration. The project has four primary components: Watershed Discovery Expeditions In the first stage of the project, field teams of youth ages 11-17 explore and document various aspects of their local watershed using state-of-the-art mapping and multimedia technology. Although guided by adult volunteers and science/technology experts, the students learn about watersheds through their own hands-on discovery. Field teams will begin exploring the Grand Traverse Bay watershed this fall. Waterscapes: Traveling Children’s Museum or Science Center Exhibit Next, content collected during the field excursions is used to create an immersive museum exhibit that recreates the experience of exploring a watershed. Youth field teams help design exhibits that communicate the concepts of watershed science to an elementary-aged audience. Soundscapes Radio Segments Finally, students further document the nature of the watershed and their inquiry with advanced sound recording technology. Working with Interlochen Public Radio producers, they develop radio segments for broadcast on IPR. Listening to the River Website Throughout the project, the web site (www.listeningtotheriver.org) provides project information, delivers educational resources, and serves as a project management site. Here mapped watershed data and multimedia information are collected, aggregated, and displayed. Funding for the immersive Waterscape exhibit includes $325,000 toward a new exhibit for the Great Lakes Children’s Museum. This exhibit will be in place within the next few months (by late April 2008), after it is designed by the project team and youth involved with the project. It will also be designed and constructed to travel to other children’s museums or science centers. At the end of the three-year grant, the project partners will have created a Listening to the River model for watershed-based education that can be used nationwide. Other communities will benefit from our expertise and experience as they pursue their own locally-based Listening to the River projects. Find out more about Listening to the River now by visiting the web site: www.listeningtotheriver.org or clicking the link below: Click for Additional Information |
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