Resources for kids of all ages Last week my post addressed some fairly esoteric questions. Should we try to "restore" nature? What should we make of our ancestors' attempts, many centuries, even millennia ago, to modify species for their own benefit? What is our responsibility if our modern lifestyle is taking an excessive toll on the natural world? Those questions probably aren't designed for students of all ages. But the beauty of TIC is that it can be highly educationally beneficial to students across the spectrum, from pre-school to 12th grade--and beyond! And, if your curriculum is flexible enough, this is a great time of year for helping your students learn about trout, their anatomy, physiology, habitat, threats, food, etc. Here are a few resources/suggestions that you might want to consider, some of which are appropriate for younger students. Trout Are Made of Trees Trout Are Made of Trees is a delightful book/story for children four to eight years of age, but I think it might work great for somewhat older students too. It's well told and illustrated and is available both in paperback and as an e-book. If you click on the image to the right, it will take you to the publisher's Web site for the book. Here's a link to a Web page full of activities related to the book. And Project Learning Tree has suggestions (here) on how to connect elements of the book to their curriculum. Below you'll find a cute shadow-puppet reading and dramatization (on YouTube) of the book done by third graders. My Healthy Stream My Healthy Stream is a beautiful, 86-page, small format booklet that could almost serve as Trout in the Classroom's other textbook (after the TIC Manual, of course!). As I tend to do, the image of the cover is a live link that will allow you to download and print the book--for free! Living in Harmony with Streams While My Healthy Stream was produced by a Michigan Trout Unlimited group but is quite relevant to our Vermont context, Living in Harmony with Streams is entirely home grown. Four conservation-minded Vermont groups--The Friends of the Winooski River, the White River Natural Resources Conservation District, the Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District, and the Vermont Rivers Program--realized that there was a great need for printed materials to educate the public about rivers, how they work, and how to take care of them. Like My Healthy Stream, it's a fabulous resource on numerous important matters related to brooks, streams, and rivers, but its scientific content is pitched at a higher level. It would certainly be great to use with high school students, but some motivated middle schoolers can probably also get a lot out of it. Of course, every TIC teacher would benefit from reading it too! Click, download, print (optional), and read. You'll be impressed by the wonderful piece of work that these four organizations, in partnership, managed to produce. Stream Explorers The national Trout Unlimited staff periodically publish a four-page newsletter called Stream Explorer, which is designed for youth members of TU. These take the form of attractive, high-resolution publications that can be easily downloaded and printed. Here's an example: the front and back pages of an issue focused on trout habitat, especially in the Adirondacks. (Click on the image to access the Google Drive folder that contains this and other issues.) VTTIC Google Drive curriculum materials All of the items featured above can also be found in the Google Drive collection I've put together for the Trout in the Classroom program; so, if you lose track of them, you can always find those resources again in that collection. Clicking on the image below will get you to that folder. (Notice the Stowe unit and the materials from a Keene, NH, teacher, by the way.) If you don't want to hunt for this particular blog post, you can always get back to this folder and others by going to the VTTIC Web page <vermonttroutintheclassroom.weebly.com>, clicking on the TIC RESOURCES button and then clicking the TIC GOOGLE DOCS COLLECTION button. National TIC Web site There are a great many valuable resources available on the TU national's TIC Web site. Take a look especially at Lesson Plan Ideas, Web Resources, and A Library List. (Those links are not active on the page below, but if you click on the image, you'll be taken to the real "Teachers" page of the TIC Web site, and you will be able to access them from there.) If you try some of these resources and curriculum materials, let me know what you think of them. Finally, a caution! I got an e-mail from a southwestern Vermont teacher about a week ago. She reported that, without realizing it, she had used a soapy sponge to clean a dirty area of her tank and now had soap everywhere. She wanted to know what to do. I advised her to use treated water to rinse and dry all soapy surfaces repeatedly. The lesson here is always make sure you're using a clean sponge--ideally, a new one--or at least one that has never been used except in your tank and certainly never been used with soap or any cleaning substance. Sponges are inexpensive. Our little trout are priceless!
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Joe Mark is Lead Facilitator of Vermont's Trout in the Classroom program.In June 2012, I retired after 40 years in higher education, having spent the last 32 years of my career as dean at Castleton. One of the first things I volunteered to do in retirement was to work with a parent-friend to help the Dorset School, where his kids and my Vermont grandkids attend, start a TIC program. Gradually that commitment grew into my current role, which is both demanding and highly rewarding. Archives
December 2019
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