Watersheds Watersheds Everywhere

Teachers Guide: Lesson Session 2 and Extensions

Session 2
Warm up: Have students identify key locations on the series of maps from the previous lesson.

• Does everyone live in the Mississippi River Basin? Write Mississippi River Basin at one side of the board.
• Does everyone live in the White River Watershed? Do some live in the Missouri River Watershed? Write these on the Board.

Procedure:

1. Hand out the Local Watersheds map and put that map on your overhead. Find the North Fork and Bryant Creek. Follow them down to where they come together.

• What stream is labeled between them? (Fox Creek) Find Fox Creek on your Bryant Creek watershed map, too.
• Where is the Ozark Divide? Where are the highest ridges in these watersheds? And the lowest areas?
• Highlight the school's location on the overhead map. Have the students mark their copies.
• What watershed is it in?
• Is that in the White River Basin or the Missouri River Basin?
• What do each of these watersheds share with the Bryant Creek Watershed? (point out the common ridgelines)

2. Ask students which of these small watersheds they think are in your school district. Write the correct watersheds on the board. Have the students highlight those watershed boundaries on their maps.

3. Ask the students to locate their homes on the collection of paper maps in the classroom. Help students relate the maps to the Local Watersheds map to find their home watersheds.

• Which watersheds do they live in? Count the representatives of each watershed and have them note those population numbers on their maps as well as on the board.
• Which watershed has the most students? Why? Which has the fewest? What might be some reasons for that?

4. Record all those found on both the overhead maps and individual student maps, even if they are approximate locations.

5. Have the students write their complete watershed address on their maps, starting with the smallest watershed they can identify. For example: Hunter Creek, Bryant Creek, North Fork River, White River, Mississippi River. You may use the Watersheds Worksheet for this, which has a watershed address form included in it.

6. Ask students who finish first from each watershed represented to think of some important features and landmarks in their home watershed. Where are the bridges? Recreation accesses to the river or creeks? What are the main roads and towns? Ask them to tell the class a little about their home watershed.

Wrap up: Ask a few students to give their complete watershed address out loud. Compare the watershed addresses to mailing addresses. Could you find some one’s home by their watershed address? What kind of map would you need?

Evaluation
Each student should be able to identify their own watershed address, and to locate those watersheds on a map.

Extensions
A. Have students read the introductions to the watersheds from the Atlas, either online or in print.
Have each student write up and/or illustrate a short descriptive essay about some feature of his/her watershed.
Tip:You can find links to the watersheds in your school district by going to the Atlas Education section (/education/)
Open your school district's page. Each district's watersheds are listed there with links to the introductions.
The Bryant Watershed Introduction is at:
http://www.watersheds.org/places/watershed.htm
Bryant Creek Tributaries have their own articles. Go to:
http://www.watersheds.org/places/tributaries.htm and follow the links.

B. Use a portion of a state map to create a poster or bulletin board, with the watersheds drawn in and students' homes located.

C. Compile the watershed address data for the class on charts or graphs, by hand or using a database program like Excel. See samples of this activity:
Watershed Addresses
http://www.watersheds.org/education/agraphs.htm

Submit the best of your students' work for inclusion on the Atlas. For details on submitting your work, see Sending Us Material (/sending.htm)

 
Developed by Lois Reborne and Mary Chipps, 2001, with funding from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Copyright © Bryant Watershed Project, Inc. All rights reserved. May be printed for classroom use.
Find this lesson online at: http://www.watersheds.org/teacher/water01.htm