Introduction
Wash away your troubles! This advice sounds possible but where do your troubles really go? If you follow the path of the water, you will find that they end up at a stream or river or even spilling into the ocean. It is easy to think that the water will just take things conveniently away, but we mustn't be fooled - those things are still with us. Sadly, many watersheds do have troubles that have washed into their waterways and created a problem for many including plants, animals, and of course, people. This six-week curriculum unit is designed for students in the sixth grade. It guides the young scientists through the steps to understanding the structure of a watershed, investigating human impact, learning about their own watershed, and the designing and building a model of that watershed. Through inquiry and experimentation the students will discover the dynamic operation of their hometown waterways.
As a sixth-grade teacher in a self-contained classroom at Edgewood Magnet School in New Haven, I find the neighborhood/ magnet setting a rewarding environment, with students coming to school each day from a variety of home circumstances and with differences in academic levels. As a result of these variables, the children have a range of background knowledge and life experiences. The classroom is a blend of varied ethnicities, economic strata, and social and emotional strengths and weaknesses. Edgewood provides an arts-integrated curriculum, an educational approach that supports multiple intelligence theory and uses arts education as a means to assist students to improve their academic performance and enrich their lives. Arts-integration curricula use art forms—music, visual art, theater, and dance to teach other core subjects, including math, science, reading, and language arts. This unit aligns with the philosophy of the school. The use of scientific inquiry allows all students at all levels to learn in an inherently differentiated environment.
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