You can lead students to the river, but you can't make them think. With planning, however, river projects can be powerful learning experiences. Teachers who have already gotten their feet wet on river projects suggest you ask several questions: How will activities apply to the classroom? Are lessons coordinated among various subject areas? Are you prepared to adapt to unexpected developments - the river is running higher and swifter after a heavy night's rain.

"The best way to get kids to understand complex ideas is to work through them and utilize them," said Patsy Cicala, science teacher at Poughkeepsie High School. Cicala has taught site project methods and environmental protocols to more than 100 teachers in surrounding districts.

Getting ready

Cicala and others who have conducted site projects offered these suggestions for a successful trip and classroom linkage:

• Get permission from parents when activities dictate, such as wading into a river to collect specimens;

• Have specific goals and link them to the teacher's specialty, be it atmospheric analysis or mapping techniques;

• Make links across all subject areas for total involvement;

• Conduct a pre-field trip experience at school as a dry run to check supplies and equipment and spot unanticipated needs;

• Ensure all know their jobs before visiting the site: who will measure, who will go into water, etc.;

• Tap good resources outside the classroom;

• Plan to expose kids to multi-level, multi-faceted explorations that tap their particular strengths;

• At the river, have students switch tasks periodically; this ensures they know the responsibilities for each job and makes for better teamwork;

• After the site visit, make sure students have time to digest the information, understanding what they did and why they did it, and how would they change the site visit; and

• Have students organize raw data and report on the validity of their findings to the class.

River projects have inspired hands-on lessons, which can draw on parents and higher education faculty as resources:

• Teachers Jeanne Hamilton and Michael Gault have involved a dozen secondary students in Edwards-Knox in building a courtyard/pond.

• Two Gouverneur students conducted an 80-minute taped interview with songwriter/environmentalist Pete Seeger after extensive research on the Internet.

• Alternative education students in Gouverneur worked with prospective teachers in William Doody's class at SUNY Potsdam, to craft lesson plans linked to the state's new standards.

• Canton Middle School students hold a weekly chat-room with students in Germany and New Zealand to compare notes about their river projects. Listen to the sounds of the Grasse River at their Internet site: www.att.virtualclassroom.org/vc98/vc_40.

Tributaries (For more info)
• Parent groups and the state PTA have produced "Parents and Projects," a booklet of ideas for teachers on ways to involve parents in standards-focused lessons. Contact Roberta Stillin-Dowman for more info. Her e-mail address is: rstillin@northnet.org.

• Syracuse University students - in partnership with staff from the Beard Alternative School in Syracuse, John Marshall High School in Rochester and the Black River Elementary School - wrote a booklet on strategies for assessing needs of students with disabilities who are involved in river projects. Contact Susan Herman at mesibov@northnet.org for more information.

• The Oswegatchie River/Local Waterways Project's Web page has background information, a synopsis of project activities, related river sites, evaluation documents and other materials for downloading, plus an extensive list of e-mail addresses for project resource people in K-12 and at the State University. You can participate in the project's on-line discussion forum and link to participating schools. The Web page address is: http://cfcs.neric.org/orp.html.

  - Van Dyke

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