The authors, Eugenia Barnaba, Marianne Krasny, Laurie Kasperek, Susan Hoskins and Jean Hope are all with Cornell University. The authors include background information telling how to interpret airphotos and topographic maps, hands-on activities designed to develop airphoto and map interpretation skills, case studies and resource packets for students which include activity pages, worksheets, airphotos and maps. Classroom and 4-H educators will find the information unique and interesting to students. Everyone needs water to survive and everyone, everywhere lives in a watershed. Watershed Science for Educators was written for high school and middle school teachers and students.
Monitoring is the first step toward discovering solutions to problems.
Activities such as calculating discharge, sampling aquatic invertebrate life, calculating a biotic index for stream organisms, using a dissolved oxygen nomograph, as well as physical monitoring such as measuring stream depth and velocity are described in detail. Instructions for sampling water at a study site and blank, copyable, data sheets make using this packet, or parts of it, very easy for the teacher and the student. This packet includes teachers' pages with objectives, preparation suggestions and examples of pertinent questions. Background information gives the educator a foundation for each topic. Student activity pages and worksheets help the educator direct the lesson.