Education: Curriculum

San Diego Bay Watershed Stewards

Grade level: 3 to 5

Teacher overview

Objectives: This curriculum teaches elementary school students about the watershed we all live in here in San Diego and how we can continue to keep it healthy through our own actions. Included in the curriculum are fun booklets (student and teachers versions) filled with interactive learning challenges and environmentally friendly tips.

Summary: Your students begin this program by conducting a survey of how they use water in their home. Our curriculum then leads them through discovery stations that teach about animals living in their watershed and human threats to their watershed, such as pollution and litter. The curriculum continues with an optional field trip to a local watershed, such as Chollas Creek, where students can investigate local birds, insects, and native plants and conduct experiments on a watershed model.

Subjects: Reading, science, and art.

Skills: Students will rotate in adventure teams through interactive learning stations, each represented by an issue and an animal. These stations will present students with an ecological challenge where they must collaborate with fellow students to solve a problem. The students will also identify ways they can change their habits to promote a healthier environment and share several environmentally friendly tips with their families to practice at home.

Learning objectives: Students should be able to define their watershed, explain how they can conserve their watershed and its wildlife, and state how pollution affects their watershed.

Teacher background

A watershed is the area that drains to a common waterway, such as a stream, lake, estuary, wetland, or even the ocean. Everyone lives in a watershed system.

Teacher Fun Booklet (PDF format)* 40 pages
Student Fun Booklet (PDF format)* 48 pages
Field Lessons (PDF format)* 23 pages

* You can download the entire file. When you prepare to print, first review the file to see what individual lessons you want—that could save you paper!