Watershed Explorers Program
The Watershed Explorers Program runs annually from January through May and includes a pre-trip presentation through our School Water Education Program and a field trip to a local park or outdoor space.
For more information on this program or to express interest in enrollment, please email . Click here to download the 2021 program flyer.
Program Goals
Watershed Explorers uses science and place-based learning to build awareness and understanding of local creeks and watersheds and their unique ecosystems, as well as good stewardship practices to help care for these special places. Using a curriculum based on concepts directly linked to California’s state education standards, the program offers local children - many of whom have little or no experience being in open space settings - a concrete, experiential introduction to their watershed and the life that depends on it.
Watershed Explorers is an introductory program and covers basic ecology concepts and stewardship responsibilities. The primary program goal is to help students develop an awareness of the outdoor, natural world. Program objectives include improving student’s ability to:
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Describe the path water takes from source to sink;
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Understand the role drought plays in nature and society, and practice ways to conserve water;
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Recognize how stormwater influences our watersheds and the impacts of motor oil and trash;
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Understand how to mitigate the impacts of their own and their family's behaviors on the local watershed by becoming stewards of our county waterways, including how to implement the "Triple R" reduce, reuse, and recycle messaging.
As part of the program, students also collect data about how plants and animals change across each season (phenology) as part of a global climate change study. Click here to learn more about the phenology data collected by Watershed Explorers.
Virtual Field Trips for Digital Learning
In the following video, check out how we have adapted this and other award winning programs for distance learning.
Standards Connections
Guiding Question
What environmental solutions might help living things affected by drought and/or stormwater pollution?
What Students Do
Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about how drought and runoff pollution impacts living things in a watershed.
Next Generation Science Standards
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Disciplinary Core Ideas: (3-LS4.D) Populations live in a variety of habitats, and changes in those habitats affect the organisms living there.
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Cross Cutting Concepts: Cause and effect, patterns, systems and system models, stability and change.
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Scientific and Engineering Practices: Nearly all eight SEP’s are utilized in this program.
Watershed Explorers is funded by Solano County and all its City Jurisdictions, Solano County Water Agency, Vallejo Water Conservation Program, Fairfield-Suisun Sewer District, Vallejo Flood and Wastewater District, and the Potrero Hills Landfill. The fall component is paid through a partnership with the Greater Vallejo Recreation District with funding through the California State Parks Habitat Conservation Fund.
Past Videos