Mid-South RC&D Grant Helps Lee County Teachers Learn

Over 40 teachers were given the opportunity to make a real life connection for their students in the areas of science such as geology and the study of water. The workshop "Exploring Alabama's Living Streams" was held in March Auburn University. 

Mid-South RC&D provided a grant to give the teachers first-hand experience and supplies.  The grant was matched with over $76,000 from cooperative partners, the community, and local government agencies.

Water For Me and My Community is a project designed to help equip 7th grade teachers of life science with knowledge and resources needed to teach students about water quality and water quantity issues, using their school grounds as outdoor classrooms. The workshops foster community connections through the involvement of citizen volunteer water quality monitors and natural resource professionals in classroom and outdoor education; to create awareness for personal water consumptions practices and water pollution. The target schools are Opelika Middle School, Drake Middle School, and Trinity Christian School.

During the workshop, local teachers got their hands dirty learning about nature. While digging through heaps of rocks looking for ancient footprints and patterns of ferns, teacher learned what fun a fossil hunt can be. Wadding into a waist deep flowing stream to sein for invertebrates and fishes, teachers found new ways to get their students outdoors to learn firsthand about the world in which they live.

In the workshops, teachers also studied the macro-invertebrates who live in the waters. Teachers became certified to do bio-assessments of streams. The workshop provided the necessary tools-of-the-trade, such as kick sein, 2-way microscope, bug magnifier cubes, forceps, and insects trays.

Geologist from around the world come to Alabama to study our earth's past. Since fossils are found in many of the sedimentary layers throughout the state, it is common to find them in road cuts, stream banks and abandoned coal mines. According to Dr. Jim Lacefield, author of the book Lost Worlds in Alabama Rocks and instructor for the geology workshop, this is due to the way in which the layers of the past are spread out like a deck of cards across the surface of our state.

This workshop allowed teachers not only to gain knowledge for themselves, but they also learned how to make learning fun and interesting for their students.

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