Sixth-Grade Virtual Stream Study – Stream-to-Screen Learning

Access to this course is currently by invitation only.

Course Information

This mini-unit teaches sixth-grade students how to determine if White Clay Creek is healthy. The lessons focus on watershed education and are delivered via videos from Stroud Water Research Center. Students will complete activities for each lesson in a field notebook, available in digital or paper-based forms.

Videos for each lesson are about 35 minutes long, with pauses for completing field notebook sections. Teachers may choose to take longer pauses and discuss, but each lesson is meant for one class period.

Each lesson offers optional extension activities and two optional videos that can be played at any point in the mini-unit.

After the lessons have been completed, a conclusion session allows for a teacher-led discussion, a review of the mini-unit purpose, and two final questions that can be used as an assessment.

Course Instructor

Tara Muenz Author

Getting Started

Mini-Unit Overview and Materials

An overview of the lessons’ purpose, duration, outline, and sequence.

Diving In

Health of White Clay Creek & STEM Careers

Learning targets: interpret data from chemical water quality tests to determine if a stream is healthy; identify a STEM career that interests me.

Aquatic Macroinvertebrates

Learning targets: identify aquatic macroinvertebrates using a dichotomous key; interpret macroinvertebrate data to determine if a stream is healthy.

Stream Habitat

Learning targets: complete a stream habitat survey and interpret its data; identify how land cover, rainfall totals, and soil texture affect evapotranspiration, runoff, and infiltration using an interactive computational model; interpret the impact of land cover and soil texture on the movement of water through a watershed system.