Fox-Wolf Offers Watershed Education in Schools throughout Northeast Wisconsin

The Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance provides watershed education to schools throughout northeast Wisconsin. Schools that are within Northeast Wisconsin Stormwater Consortium (NEWSC) member communities qualify for presentations, curriculum, & activities offered for FREE to teachers! During a 60-90-minute presentation, students learn about the following topics through discussion and hands-on activities:

• Why water quality matters
• What is a watershed
• The importance of the Great Lakes and our local waterways
• Water Conservation
• How urban storm water runoff influences our rivers and lakes
• Green infrastructure and what is being done to deal with the quality and quantity of stormwater runoff
• Actions students can take at home to make a difference
• and volunteer opportunities

Every other fall, a brochure is sent out to the over 270 public and private schools throughout the region discussing the opportunity for these free watershed lessons in their classrooms. Presentations are scheduled throughout the year, and we travel around meeting new students and spreading awareness about the issues affecting our lakes and rivers. Our presentations generally offer a slideshow and discussion of the aforementioned topics that is followed by use of the Envioroscape Watershed Model, which offers students a hands-on opportunity to see these topics in action.

In 2019, we presented to 2,226 students from schools in Appleton, Combined Locks, De Pere, Fond du Lac, Kaukauna, Kimberly, Oshkosh, Menasha, Outagamie County, and Winnebago County. These presentations occurred in regular classrooms along with events at Boy and Girl Scout meetings, Super Science Saturday, Outagamie County Field Days, and Winnebago County Field Days. Taking part in Outagamie County Conservation Field Days, we were able to educate 945 students! Looking ahead to 2020, we are looking to schedule more presentations in NEWSC communities!

Through generous support from the City of Appleton at the end of 2018, we were able to purchase a Plinko game and a Ward’s floodplain model. Both tools were used in classrooms and at other outreach events throughout 2019, and offer a fun way for students to use what they learned in our presentations. The Plinko game has students dropping round chips–representing water droplets containing pollution–and seeing where they end up, in a lake or river or a stormwater pond, for example. The students play the game until there is a winner.  The winning student has kept their water droplet out of our lakes, rivers, and storm drains. The Ward’s Floodplain Model teaches students about the importance of considering floodplains when cities develop, and shows them how stormwater ponds and wetlands function in the watershed and slow down, and hold on to, excess water running off of the landscape. Check out this video below that shows how the model works. We’re looking forward to another great year of educating the youth in this region!