Carolina Clear launches free curriculum for science teachers

Published: January 19, 2011

Carolina Clear image by: Carolina Clear

NORTH CHARLESTON — Fifth- and seventh-grade students across the state can learn more about the water cycle, South Carolina’s watersheds and the importance of a healthy ecosystem with three specially crafted science lessons.

Carolina Clear, Clemson University’s stormwater education and involvement program, has produced three lessons with corresponding interactive whiteboard activities that meet state curriculum standards. Carolina Clear’s goal is to minimize polluted stormwater runoff by educating the general public, youth, builders, developers, homeowners and government officials about how they can keep water in the state’s streams, rivers and basins as clean as possible.

The Environmental Protection Agency emphasizes public education as a fundamental component in reducing stormwater runoff pollution. The EPA requires that certain municipalities and counties educate and involve the public as part of the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Phase II stormwater permit program.

The lessons are available free and were compiled with guidance from the S.C. Department of Education’s S²MART Center.

Carolina Clear's statewide coordinator Katie Giacalone said the lessons bolster the program's youth education component.

“We wanted to provide teachers with additional resources they immediately can use and which meet state science standards,” she said.

The three lessons are:

• Head for the Hills: Students pretend to be highlanders living on the tallest mountain in the mid-1700s. They find different routes to South Carolina’s early port cities without crossing rivers. Students model how topography affects water flow and understand that high topography serves as a boundary separating one watershed from another.
  SCIENCE STANDARDS: 7-4.5
• A River Runs Through It: Students “develop” land along a stream or river to generate income. They later learn their parcel is connected to other parcels along the river’s way to the sea.
  SCIENCE STANDARDS: 5-3.6 
• Tag a Toxin: In this game of tag, students model how pollutants are accumulated and passed from prey to predator in a freshwater food chain.
  SCIENCE STANDARDS: 5-2.4, 5-3.6

The lessons are designed for formal and informal educators, which means they can be used in a traditional classroom setting, in after-school programs and at nature centers and special events.

“The lessons are flexible, so they can be used in a number of environments,” Giacalone said. “And most activities are tailored specifically to South Carolina’s ecosystems and rivers.”

Giacalone acknowledged the work of Elizabeth Joyner, who compiled and authored the lesson’s whiteboard activities. Joyner is a science teacher and curriculum specialist with experience in the Charleston County School District and with S.C. Sea Grant Consortium.

For more information, visit www.clemson.edu/carolinaclear and click “Watershed Lessons” in the left-side navigation menu.

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