Teachers and high school students will get a chance to learn about Texas Aquatic Sciences at the San Antonio Water System’s 2016 Confluence.
To be held February 9th in the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, Confluence will bring together over 800 science students from throughout San Antonio who will have a chance to learn about aquatic sciences. The Confluence conference is designed to explore water issues facing San Antonio and to devise ways students can make a difference. Speakers and exhibitors combine to give students a varied experience. Hands-on activities are particularly sought by students.
The San Antonio Water System is a supporter of the Texas Aquatic Sciences curriculum and activities. Teachers working with the water systems educators will have an opportunity to meet with Texas Aquatic Science author, Dr. Rudy Rosen, as well as with researchers at the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment who are working on an assessment of effectiveness in the classroom of the curriculum. Teachers will also hear about the new effort by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department educators to certify aquatic sciences field sites, such as nature centers and museums, as informal education centers having water programs linked to Texas Aquatic Sciences lessons. More information about the certification program can be found here at Texas Parks and Wildlife.
How to establish a certified aquatic sciences field site can be found in a recent Water-Texas.org article on Texas Aquatic Science Certified Field Sites.
Texas Aquatic Science includes the Texas Aquatic Science curriculum textbook, teacher guide and activities, videos, on-line lessons, and curriculum website.
Texas Aquatic Science is a comprehensive curriculum for water and aquatic science 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 videos, 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.
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 videos, science journals, and field based assessments of water quality and environmental conditions in a variety of 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.
For more information and background please take a look at this article Aquatic Science Curriculum Research to Improve STEM Water Education.
H2O is funded by the Ewing Halsell Foundation, San Antonio.
Image from Confluence 2013, by SAWS Confluence Facebook.