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Contact: Sandy Neumann
Phone: 510-845-4595
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The STRAW Project (Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed) coordinates and sustains a network of teachers, students, community members and restoration specialists as they plan and implement watershed studies and restoration projects in Marin and Sonoma counties. STRAW provides teachers and students with the scientific, educational and technical resources to prepare them for hands-on, outdoor watershed studies, including ecological restoration of riparian corridors. STRAW's overarching goals are to empower students, support teachers, restore the environment and reconnect communities. The project is a collaboration between The Bay Institute and the Center for Ecoliteracy.
EMPOWERS STUDENTS - In 1992, a class of Brookside School fourth-graders from San Anselmo, California initiated the award-winning California Freshwater Shrimp Project to help preserve this endangered species through riparian restoration and public relations. The Shrimp Project evolved into the STRAW Project in 1998. Now in our tenth year, we continue to emphasize project-based learning approaches, in which children are encouraged to take the lead and make their own decisions about projects. Each group of students is able to contribute to their community and make a significant improvement in the quality of their environment. They apply and deepen their knowledge of academic subjects as they explore agriculture, creek ecology, interdependence and interconnections. Perhaps most importantly, they learn that they have the power to make a difference.
SUPPORTS TEACHER - We begin each school year with Watershed Week, a week long institute of professional development for teachers, followed by Fall and Spring Network Dinner Meetings and a year-end Summit where all projects are shared. Last year alone, STRAW provided 90 teachers with professional development and year long watershed studies support.
RESTORES THE ENVIRONMENT - In the 2000-2001 school year, over 2,000 K-12 students planted 2,500 native plants at 29 sites, completed erosion control/biotechnical projects, and removed tons of invasive non-native plants to allow native vegetation to survive along San Francisco Bay Area creeks. Working with restoration professionals and others, students have restored riparian habitat on urban and ranch sites so that songbirds and other native species have returned.
RECONNECTS COMMUNITIES - Watershed studies and restoration emphasize connections of natural and human community members across boundaries of age, occupation, geography, institutions, roles and species. Students, teachers and landowners are united by their concern for the land and its inhabitants. Children learn about interdependence directly from their interactions with natural systems and from exposure to adults whose lives focus on ranching and land management and protection. The ranchers are also leaders in STRAW, teaching and learning with the students. Students develop collaborative skills and relationships with the larger community as they work on restoration projects, watershed studies, and other activities that bring them in contact with places and people outside of their classroom.
STRAW is a network consisting of many committed long-term partners, including MCSTOPPP (Marin County Stormwater Pollution Prevention Program), Prunuske Chatham Inc. (restoration biologists), Point Reyes Bird Observatory, the Marin and Southern Sonoma County Resource Conservation Districts, River of Words, Marin Conservation Corps and more. With our partners we are able to support a variety of programs including bird projects, poetry and art, water monitoring and mapping.
Type: Partnerships/Networking
Focus: Life Science, Environmental Science
Audience/Grade(s) served: 4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
Counties Served: Sonoma, Marin
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More Information (opens a new window):
http://www.ecoliteracy.org/pages/straw.html |
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