2001 CO Water Education Final Report

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criteria. Teachers discussed how to improve both the assessments and the scoring criteria. For assessments to work well teachers need to use them several times and make changes for improvement. These assessments were not used as part of the evaluation of the Water's Way~ program since they need to be piloted and then improved. If the Water's Ways program is funded in the future, student assessments could be used as part of the evaluation. This session also gave participants an opportunity to discuss activities in more detail and describe what worked, dido't work and how to modify them. The program evaluation report gives additional information about the professional development component. The responses were very positive. Provide Input upon Request by other Water Education Projects The Coordinator provided input and recommendations to water education providers as requested via email throughout the project. A Digital Water Education Library Project was funded by the National Science Foundation during the fall of2001. Ed Geary at Colorado State University is the Project Director. The Coordinator serves on the Advisory Committee for this project which will serve Colorado along with the other states in the U.S. Colorado is positioned to collaborate on this federally-funded digital water library project. Colorado water education resources should become part of the digital library. The Coordinator also provided feedback on the Sombrero Marsh curriculum being developed jointly by Thorne Natural Science School and Boulder Valley School District. Attend Conferences to Showcase Water Education Materials Colorado Water Conservation Board water education activities were highlighted at two Colorado conferences attended by classroom teachers. Nancy Kellogg and Judith Daley did a presentation on the Colorado Water Conservation Board Education Project at the "Teaching Outside the Box" Conference sponsored by the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education at Snow Mountain Ranch in Fraser, Colorado on May 5~6, 2001. The presentation included information and activities on Learning to be WaterWise and Water's Ways, the Educational Resource Guide CD-Rom on water education resources, and how to become involved in the water education provider network. The CD-Rom was also distributed to conference attendees. Nancy Kellogg and Debbie Lerch Cushman did a presentation on October 5 at the Colorado Science Convention that focused on water education tools, strategies and resources for teachers. Judith Daley and Joe Busto had a Colorado Water Conservation Board kiosk throughout the science convention and distributed information including the CD-Rom on water education resources to over 600 teachers. The exhibit was highly successful and popular with teachers. Finally water education information was distributed to science educators through the Colorado Science Education Network which holds monthly meetings and has a very active listserve. Outside Evalution Report on Learning to be WaterWise and Water's Ways Alisabeth Hohn, an evaluation consultant from Colorado Springs, was hired to design an evaluation plan, gather and analyze data on use of the Learning to be WaterWise materials and Water's Ways Water Cycle materials in pilot classrooms, and write a final report that gave a summary of what she found. The purpose of hiring an outside evaluator was to provide 4