This ongoing project has an exciting goal: to create a model for integrating an interdisciplinary environmental education curriculum for grades K through 12 throughout a local school district.

During the summers of 2000 & 2001, we completed extraordinarily rewarding and energizing sessions with more than 80 middle and high school teachers from all over the nation who were participating in a three-week summer institute conducted by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation at Princeton University. We were invited to kick-off the institute with an inquiry-based project, so we designed a three-day unit as an introduction to watershed studies.

"Nine Weeks in Spring" Using the Magic Marker Site, an abandoned brownfield site in Trenton, as a focus,over 80 students from 4 different schools came together to see just how complex an environmental problem can be.

The Summer 2000 Watershed Education Institute was a weeklong workshop designed to empower teachers to examine a wide range of watershed issues through interdisciplinary activities and field studies in their communities. Our enthusiastic and energetic group was composed of 12 middle and high school educators from New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Students embarked on an integrated study of water issues facing their community. They learned about watersheds, the water cycle, how to reduce water consumption, sources of water pollution, corporate responsibility, job opportunities in environmental engineering, and much more! They visited several sites along the Assunpink Creek, a tributary of the Delaware River which runs through Trenton and has headwaters in rural central New Jersey. The students performed chemical tests and biological sampling to assess water quality at a suburban site, and then performed the same tests at an urban site downstream. Other toimages were also addressed, such as historic and current land use near the creek, flooding problems and solutions, brownfield sites along the creek, and the proposed Assunpink Greenway Plan. The students participated in several clean-up and restoration projects at Trenton parks on the Delaware River and the Assunpink Creek.

A number of New Jersey teachers elected to spend one week of their summer vacation (July 13-17, 1998) attending a week-long program focusing on water and watersheds. The goal was for educators to have a better understanding of the many issues and perspectives that exist on water and watersheds and share ways that they can incorporate this information in their classes.

Participating Schools:

• Camden High School
• Cherry Hill West High School

Students from both schools engaged in the W.A.T.E.R. (Water and Technology - Education - Reasearch) Study. They learned about the supply and distribution of water through their communities, including water quality, water monitoring, water pollution and water legislation.

Participating Schools :

• Granville Academy - Trenton

Students discovered the natural beauty of the Hamilton-Trenton Marsh while hiking through in different seasons. They learned about the various wildlife habitats provided by the marsh, and they discussed human impacts which threaten the health of the marsh ecosystem. The students also visited a local water treatment plant and a chemical manufacturing plant, two examples of human enterprises which depend on water.

Participating School :

• Trenton Central High School

The question of how to handle our garbage is a big one, and the students in this project tackled that question. They looked at the different methods in which garbage can be disposed of safely. They also saw how garbage can be reused in beneficial ways.

Participating Schools :

Camden High School Cherry Hill West High School	A team of students from the two schools put together The Camden Radiation Investigation website to showcase their project and findings. The students also entered the site into the ThinkQuest contest.
Camden High School and Cherry Hill West High School Students came together in this program to learn about an environmental problem in their backyard: the Welsbach General Gas Mantle Site. This factory used radioactive thorium to manufacture gas mantles, and now that thorium has left a lot of problems.

Brownfields Investigation (1995/96)

Participating School :

• Granville Academy

By taking a look at the former Champale Factory in Trenton, a polluted urban property, the students learned how similar sites cause problems for cities all over the country.