Wonder-ful Water

Washington Service Learning Center

Just how can we bridge cultures and environmental education? At Washington Service Learning Center in Stevens Point we use areas outside our classroom. We're fortunate to have developed a thriving prairie plot on our grounds as part of an "Earth Partnership" venture with UW- Madison's Arboretum. Since UW- Stevens Point's College of Natural Resources is nearby we've also developed a multi generational collaboration for our environmental education. Through them we've partnered with schools in South Africa. Water: it's vital everywhere and easily accessible in central Wisconsin. To help our students to appreciate how fortunate they are to be able to walk over to a faucet whenever they're thirsty we had these EE Week events. Students learned about Heifer International programs for water access in a village in Ecuador. We watched a video of South African students carrying jugs of water for their homes. Next 5th graders were challenged to fill gallon jugs with water and walk a mile around the school's track. Definitely harder than they thought it would be! A celebration was held as we poured out the water over our newly burned prairie. We've paired for several years with the university's burn crew to watch nature's marvelous fire and water renewal. This year we also walked to a nearby park to participate at stations the college students had set up to help us learn about the importance of wetland habitats.

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