Education
Environmental Education and Teacher Development the Focus of Grant to Georgia Southern Team
The IWH is part of a multidisciplinary team from Georgia Southern that was awarded a grant from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to work with educators and students to provide hands-on experiences in watershed science, biology, and chemistry. The funded project, “Suwannee Watershed: Assessment and Monitoring of Place to Gain Understanding of Local Flow (SWAMP to GULF),” is led by principal investigator (PI) Lacey Huffling, Ph.D., associate professor of science education, and co-PIs Heather Scott, Ed.D., and Regina McCurdy, Ph.D., both assistant professors of science education.
Dr. Asli Aslan and Luke Roberson from the IWH will be focused on science communication, citizen science techniques, and environmental experiential education. Luke serves on the state board of the Georgia Adopt A Stream program (AAS), the state’s largest volunteer water quality monitoring program. The grant will supply teachers and students with the training and equipment to monitor their local waterways, understand the results, and log them into the AAS database for analysis.
The goal of the program is to provide place-based watershed experiential education to students who might otherwise not have this opportunity. In addition to helping students, teacher professional development and science communication are priorities of this grant.
IWH and Sustain Southern Hold Discussion Panel with Students and Faculty
As part of Sustainability Week at Georgia Southern, the IWH brought together members of its affiliated faculty and students to discuss issues of sustainability at the intersection of water and public health. The subject of water is transdisciplinary – meaning touches on many different professions, sciences, and life experiences. Faculty expertise from engineering, education, chemistry, biology, and public health viewpoints brought a health discussion with student input. We look forward to more of these conversations between faculty and students.
IWH staff talks about water quality with Effingham middle schoolers
IWH staff joined Kania Greer from Georgia Southern University’s Institute for Interdisciplinary STEM Education to talk to middle school students from Effingham County at the Honey Ridge Agricultural Center. Luke Roberson taught the kids how to do simple water quality tests, and what they meant for the ecosystem in the water and the people around it, while Kania Greer went over the importance of macroinvertebrates to water monitoring. Over 90 students came through the two learning tables. The IWH makes a point to work with K-12 students and educators on how to communicate science in a fun and transferrable manner.