Welcome to the Housatonic Watershed's

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION NETWORK

Education Action Plan            Biodiversity Teacher-Training Workshop

Grants           Housatonic River Curriculum Materials

To ensure local participation in the restoration of the Housatonic River, Housatonic River Restoration (HRR) is developing a river restoration plan solidly based in community concerns. The heart of this watershed plan, which represents the diverse views of 1,200 local citizens, is a comprehensive education effort. 

Thanks to grants awarded by the Massachusetts Environmental Trust, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs, HRR has been building an Environmental Education Network, joining teachers, municipal officials, environmentalists, regional planners, industries, farmers, sportsmen and many others to ensure a responsible and knowledgeable constituency of river users for generations to come.

The partnership has many components. A schools-based network provides the resources, training and assistance that classroom teachers need to bring environmental education into the classroom and to bring students and teachers outside into the environment. On July 17-19, 2001, HRR sponsored "Biodiversity in the Housatonic River Basin." This three-day professional development workshop for Grades 3-8 teachers was team-taught by the region's environmental organizations and will be offered again in the future.

We have been helping area schools to develop place-based curricula enabling the Housatonic River to be used as an educational resource. Conte Community School in Pittsfield is adding place-based lesson plans to its newly created environmental science curriculum for elementary schools. The Southern Berkshire Regional School District is working with the Antioch New England Institute to design a service-based curriculum that involves middle school students in real world environmental projects. Taconic High School is developing the science/chemistry component of an environmental science high school curriculum that will utilize field experiences to ensure that all students have access to the scientific knowledge needed to develop scientific literacy. We invite you to view and use these new Housatonic River Curriculum materials.

Other community-wide initiatives within the partnership include helping local conservation commissions become more sensitive to natural resources at the regional level, introducing farmers to the benefits of riverbank vegetative buffers, educating municipalities and property owners about the benefits of non-point source water quality control, and providing public education programs on the health impacts of PCBs.

We have developed a detailed Education Action Plan, which includes recommendations for priority actions, brief descriptions of ongoing programs, and a list of existing or potential providers. We welcome your comments. In the past, the Massachusetts Environmental Trust has enabled us to fund a few pilot initiatives. 

We will advocate the HRR Education Action Plan to the Natural Resource Damage Trustees charged with spending PCB settlement monies to restore the Housatonic River..

Please let us know if you would like to join the Education Partnership and receive news of our activities.

This project is funded by the Massachusetts Environmental Trust, 
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and a
"Communities Connected by Water" grant from the 
Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs.