Our B-WET Teacher Cohort is expanding, and we’re looking to build the team to a maximum of 12 alternative teacher or alternative educational professionals. The cohort meets monthly to investigate hands-on lessons that incorporate NOAA resources, experiential learning practices, and use them in alternative school settings. Joining the team would not only provide the opportunity to design and test lessons that support MWEE concepts in your classroom but provide the opportunity to share those findings and connect with other professionals in the area. Meetings are usually on Zoom but include an in-person visit to NESS’s Stonington campus.

To learn more or join the Teacher Cohort, contact us!

Here’s what our B-WET Teacher Cohort has been up to for the 2021-2022 academic year!

October 2021

A team of talented alternative teachers met for their first NESS-NOAA BWET Cohort kickoff meeting. These teachers specialize in working with alternative students in Southeastern Connecticut, with students ranging from behavior to learning differences. Our goal is to research and identify best practices of experiential learning and alternative learning to be used in delivery of B WET and NESS lessons in the classroom, and to share this knowledge through an annual virtual convening and a web-based toolkit launching in October 2022.

NESS Educators: Nina (Moana), Sarah (Spindrift), and Mia (Sunshine) set off to start their school years with alternative students at Shoreline, Thames Valley, and Green Valley schools (the Hartford HealthCare’s Natchaug Hospital clinical day treatment schools). NESS visits students weekly, with team-building activities to encourage the use of social and emotional learning (SEL) skills as the forefront, and interconnected in all NESS lessons.

November 2021

In November, our teacher cohort visited NESS for the first time! On this chilly morning we investigated the life of plankton, sampling with a net off the docks, studying them under the microscopes, and discussing how to create adaptations for different learning environments. Afterwards, the team participated in a workshop to set objectives for their research to identify best practices of experiential learning and alternative education.

November 2021

Shoreline students visited NESS Stonington in November! Focusing on water quality, they examined charts and mapped out their path, and what differences they might find with temperature, salinity, pH, and turbidity. They then boarded NESSie, NESS’s Carolina Skiff research vessel, and drove to various areas to test out their hypotheses.

December 2021

Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences empowers students and educators to take informed action after investigating their local environmental issues through lessons, community events, curriculum design, and more. TNESS Educators share activities with the cohort that the alternative learning professionals can bring back to their classrooms. During our monthly sessions, the cohort discusses and cultivates ideas on how lessons can be delivered in various alternative learning environments.  In December we reviewed the significance of marine debris and led an experiential lesson on its impacts. One of our teachers brought it back to his own classroom with his own spin on it.

January 2022

In the Winter season, Thames Valley students investigated adaptations of various marine mammals. Students were introduced to NESS’ life size inflatable humpback whale, Lucy. They experimented with the temperature changes by submerging their hands in ice-cold water with different forms of insulation (blubber, sand, fur, etc.) to explore how insulation keeps animals warm in cold environments and deep depths. Students also took a virtual dive with a sea lion from the Channel Island National Marine Sanctuary.

February 2022 

Recycle Regatta

NESS Educators at Natchaug schools, and cohort participants delivered lessons to encourage their students to compete in the Recycle Regatta of 2022. Concepts such as buoyancy, environmental stewardship, engineering design process, sailing, and how to calculate speed were all reviewed before students built their own model sailboats out of recycled or repurposed materials. The Recycle Regatta, hosted by NESS, Educational Passages, and North American marine Environment Protection Association (NAMEPA) is a virtual regatta for students K-12 to engineer a sailboat that is either the most creative or seaworthy in each age range. We were very excited to see all the unique designs from our students this year.

March 2022 

Americorps Members Kim & Anna – Cool Chemistry Unit 

Thames Valley students explored the chemistry of salt water in a four-week unit led by Americorps members, Squalo and Croc. Throughout the four weeks students investigated unique properties of saltwater with osmosis experiments, density challenges, water quality monitoring, and more. Students even created their own circuits using paper clips, glue, salt, and other household materials, using salt to conduct electricity from a battery to an LED light. Coming full circle, students applied concepts of acids and bases and polymer formation to real-life situations exploring the impacts of ocean acidification, breakdown of shipwrecks such as the Titanic, and polymers in slime and relativity to bissell threads of mussels.

April 2022 

Earth Day Advocacy Posters / Working on the Garden – Environmental Service Action – MWEE Connection 

The four essential elements of Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences (MWEE) defined by the B WET program, are that students define an issue, engage in an outdoor field experience, synthesize and conclude from observations and data collection, and create an environmental action project in response. One of the driving questions for Thames Valley students was to identify the anthropogenic impacts on freshwater ecosystems in their communities. With Moana, Squalo, and Croc as their guides, students visited vernal pools, ponds, and streams to investigate that question further. During these field expeditions students put on waders and took various measurements. While visiting a vernal pool, students recorded the depth, length, and width of the pool, then sampled the pools in search of life, and even found salamander eggs! While visiting a local park to explore a pond and stream, students practiced kick netting and dip netting to search for benthic macroinvertebrates and discussed how they are an indicator of water quality. These expeditions prompted discussion on threats to the ecosystems including topics of drought, intensive agriculture, and human population growth. This encouraged students to participate in a trash pick-up during their nature expeditions as their environmental action project.

May 2022 

Thames Valley students designed another environmental action project to install and update their school’s garden. Students weeded, tilled, spread new soil, and planted vegetables and flowers in the garden beds. Sustainable urban agriculture is just one example of how youth can minimize rainwater runoff from impermeable surfaces, which often transport pollutants and debris to our waterways. Instead, the water can be contained in a rain barrel or garden and used to grow food!

June 2022

Cohort participants visited NESS Stonington to wrap up their academic year. Besides reviewing research, setting objectives for the following academic year, and working on the Toolkit creation and Convening agenda, they also took to the water! Cohort participants kayaked to a local spot to explore anthropogenic impacts from the history of Stonington Borough businesses and development, as well as investigate the intertidal zone.