To promote student empowerment and action-taking. The educational model fostered by the REP focuses strongly on the watershed as a hydrologic feature, but also as a teaching tool. Schools sample from many different points along the watershed, and share information and water quality data through a computer network. The why, what, and where questions lead students and teachers to potential sources of pollution, or of protection. The foundation of the REP is this network, both among schools and as schools reaching out to their communities.
Watersheds are inherently interdisciplinary-they are crucibles of human activity.
Social, economic, and political concerns are played out in land use decisions, and in decisions that affect water quality and quantity. When students and teachers begin to look at watersheds in this way they are taking an ecosystem approach which is the backbone of the RAP process. In order to build an effective citizenry in the Rouge watershed, these understandings and skills need to be nurtured. In addition, these grades also sample for benthic macroinvertebrates and apply diversity and tolerance indices. Aesthetic surveys are part of all grades.