Texas Aquatic Science was featured at the XVIth World Water Congress held in Cancun, Mexico in June 2017.
With the theme “Bridging Science and Policy” the World Water Congress was jointly held by the International Water Resources Association, the National Water Commission of Mexico and the National Association of Water and Sanitation Utilities.
Dr. Rudolph Rosen, author of the Texas Aquatic Science textbook, presented the water education curriculum at a forum focused on building capacity of countries to provide water for people and industry. A technical paper covering research on the effectiveness of the curriculum was written for the World Water Congress by Rosen, along with Johnnie Smith of Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and Erin Scanlon, a Ph.D. student at Texas State University.
According to the authors, Texas Aquatic Science originated from a project seeking better ways to educate students about water because of concern that current education was failing to promote good decisions about water by adult citizens and political leaders. A comprehensive water education curriculum, now known as Texas Aquatic Science, was developed. The curriculum was designed to engage learners from middle school through university using an education pathway to create water-savvy citizens of tomorrow who will take personal action to ensure effective stewardship of water and support evidence-based water policies. The authors described the pathway and presented results of research on the pathway’s effectiveness with middle and high school students and teachers.
World Water Congress Transactions and Papers
The full paper can be downloaded here: https://water-texas.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Aquatic-Science-Education-Rosen.pdf
Download HereTexas Aquatic Science is a comprehensive curriculum for water and aquatic science education studies for middle and high school use, plus application at the university level for non science majors.
The curriculum consists of a textbook in hard copy and fully on line, a massive teachers resource and activity guide that includes assessments, specially produced aquatic science video, and 220 online video lessons all fully aligned with Texas teaching standards. It’s become the top-ranked curriculum and source for information on aquatic science on the internet today.
Aquatic science students and adult learners may navigate the online student portal. For teachers, the Teachers Guide is loaded with science investigations, games, models, cooperative learning activities, Internet projects, readings from the student guides, short aquatic science education videos, science journals, and field based assessments of water quality and environmental conditions in a variety of outdoor education field trips. Most time is spent doing hands on activities from the Teacher Guide, over 700 pages of TEKS aligned, hands-on activities designed to engage all learners and all learner types. Lessons in each chapter begin with an activity to allow the teacher to assess what students know about the concepts to be studied. Lessons embed higher order thinking skills, provide depth and complexity of learning, and provide a wide variety of hands-on activities that engage students in many contexts and methods. Each lesson includes an opportunity for students to apply what they have learned by synthesizing the information and demonstrating their learning by developing creative products or performances.
Texas Aquatic Science education includes the Texas Aquatic Science curriculum textbook, teacher guide and activities, aquatic science videos, on-line lessons, and curriculum website.