Based on feedback from attendees at an environmental summit who requested information about regional water sources, a team comprised of a local nonprofit, a state university, and a cooperative extension office created a community water education program. Undergraduate student interns worked with the author to develop a 20-minute science-based…

In a regional gathering called the Youth Water Summit, high school students present projects that respond to the driving question behind their science curriculum: "How can you address a significant water resource challenge in your community's watershed?" Students exhibit scientific posters, interactive presentations, films, art projects,…

The Waste Wise Schools program has a longstanding history in Australia. It is an action-based program that encourages schools to move toward zero waste through their curriculum and operating practices. This article provides a review of the program, finding that it has had notable success in reducing schools' waste through a "reduce, reuse,…

Environment and sustainable development show how policies are becoming ever more complex and ambiguous. This trend calls for new evaluation approaches. They need to be more clearly focused on specific, explicit concerns. They must be driven by a strategic concept of use to overcome the vulnerability to manipulation of many integrative, essentially…

The integration of student research into a general chemistry laboratory and an environmental geology course has been evaluated for its effectiveness to improve (i) student attitudes about science and chemistry, (ii) student understanding of the nature of experimental science and the scientific method, and (iii) student perceptions of the…

Since Earth Day 1970, the number of environmental groups has approximately doubled and the movement articulates a much broader and comprehensive philosophy than earlier conservation or preservation movements. The Lake Michigan Federation, one of the new environmental groups developed from the Open Lands Project, was publicly proclaimed in…

Section 109(b) of the 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments authorized funding for the construction of statewide water treatment training facilities. Described in this report is work conducted by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) to: (1) aid in developing updated 109(b) Guidance Documents; (2) characterize and evaluate existing…

"Impact" is possibly the most frequently evaluated construct associated with any kind of technological diffusion or adoption within educational settings. Seemingly endless research projects are funded to measure it and to validate the educational value we have become adept at inscribing into practically all novel technologies brought to…

The analytical approaches used to develop and evaluate policies at the water-use planning sites are intended to provide insight to decisionmakers and to help stakeholders structure their thinking and deliberations. These objectives are fundamentally different from those of evaluation approaches favored by many economists, which seek to provide a…

This paper presents the design, implementation and assessment of the Columbia River Basin Environmental Research Project (CERP) curriculum. CERP is an online inquiry-based, regional geographic curriculum designed to improve technology skills and content knowledge about water quality and watershed-level processes. Student attitudes and knowledge…

Describes how a unit on drinking water from the Association for Science Education's (ASE) project, Science across Europe, is used as the basis for incorporating assessable key skills into GNVQ Science assignments. Provides examples of worksheets and data analysis. (DDR)

The Illinois Rivers Project was developed as an integrated, multidimensional science/technology/society pilot project designed to introduce water quality dimensions into Illinois high schools. The project involved high school science, social science, and English teachers in an integrated study of their local river and community. Science students…

A project was undertaken at Kirkwood Community College to develop a full-time and part-time competency based program to educate water and wastewater treatment plant operators. First, a survey was conducted to identify the job tasks performed by the operators, their frequency, importance, and necessity. A questionnaire listing 651 tasks divided…