SHARED STORIES Experiencia Academy Discovering Water Rights Across the Americas

Morgan’s class of 4th and 5th graders began investigating the international water crisis in the second semester of the 2013-2014 school year.  Morgan’s friend, Paul Cebul, from Reach Trade LLC. out of Wooster, Ohio, runs a coffee company with a unique campaign – Water for the Americas.  This campaign included a 15,000 mile drive from Boston to Rio de Janeiro to raise awareness about the water crisis throughout the Americas and to demonstrate the importance of water stewardship.  Paul stopped in Detroit and visited Morgan’s class.  Through his encouragement, students wanted to support his project in Mexico to increase clean water, through sustainable coffee growing, water stewardship education, and advocacy for local groups supporting clean water and organic agriculture.   They came up with a project idea of making caramel apples and selling at the school – to their surprise, this fundraiser was a huge hit and raised $600 for the Water for the Americas project in just a few days!  $100 went to the advocacy campaign, and $500 went to a water nano-purification system for a school in Guadalajara.  This outreach project in Guadalajara will be managed by Reach Trade and Selva Negra, the non-profit organization of the famous, Grammy Award winning, Mexican rock band, Mana.

This initial project was so successful, that Morgan decided to continue the project in the 2014-2015 school year with a hydroponics garden.  Morgan started teaching all of the 6th grade subjects, and had many of the same students as the previous year who were excited to start working on the next phase of the project.  At the same time that they were investigating local solutions to water quality, the Detroit water shutoffs were occurring, only further motivating the class to take action locally.  SEMIS staff worked with Experiencia to develop a three pronged curriculum looking at the triple bottom line of hydroponic gardening  – equity, ecology and economy of growing hydroponic plants.  They purchased their “Tower Garden” with funds from a DonorsChoose.com fundraising campaign, which grows vegetables vertically using 20 gallons of reusable water pumped and distributed throughout the system with nutrients and a growing medium.  Students started a blog to talk about the value of their system for growing food with local clean water supplies, as a possible solution to both conserving water and addressing food security in the City of Detroit.

SEMIS Connections:

• Rebecca Nielsen with Nielsen Education Consulting and the SEMIS Steering Committee worked with Morgan to develop a unique curriculum based around the “Triple Bottom Line” – Equity, Environment and Economy – to teach the benefits of the hydroponics gardening system.

• In 2015, Morgan will receive funds to support expanding the hydroponics gardening system to donate more food to charity.

Resources from outside sources:

• Donors Choose, a crowd funding site for teacher’s projects, helped to support the hydroponic gardening tower.

Community Partners:

• Teach for America made Morgan’s classroom experience possible!

• Working with Escuela Avencemos to pilot this same program at another Spanish language school in Detroit.

• Paul Cebul at Reach Trade Company supported the youth’s project with a school in Mexico, and educated the class on international water issues and farming.

• Morgan partnered with Ethan Lowenstein’s EMU pre-teacher education course to support the project direction.

Outcomes for Students’ Learning:

Students learned a process for engaging virtually and locally in the clean water and healthy food discussion that involved both international understanding and local impact.  The inquiry-based project started with the student’s interest in the international water crisis through the work of Paul Sebull, an expert in both food systems and the importance of clean water for the sustainability of the coffee trade.  Many of the students in Morgan’s class are of Hispanic descent, so the relevancy of their connection to Mexico in particular was the hook that focused their goals for supporting clean water in this country.  Starting with this global perspective, and fine tuning that theme for the relevant local water and food access crisis in Detroit brought home the importance of this lesson in their own backyard.  Learning about and drafting new water rights like those of the United Nations linked the local discussion about water turn-offs and the international discussion about water sanitation in Mexico and South America.  Students also gained public presentation skills at the Place-Based Education Conference in November, giving them a public forum to share the skills and successes of their project.  Students shared their passion for clean water in many different formats, including a  YouTube video and blog the students created.  The relevance of this study working with students in their community and around the world is so powerful, that they have worked to continue their fundraising and hydroponic garden by selling a special coffee through Reach Trade that will support clean water, roasted in Detroit and featuring hand decorated bags by the students.  Such student motivation to continue and grow their work is a clear sign of successful project-based learning.

Outcomes for Educator’s Learning:

Morgan’s experience with SEMIS has developed with her Teach for America career and her renewed commitment to both Detroit and urban education.  She participated in past professional development days and community forums focused on the environmental  history of southeast Michigan and telling the story of our places.  She also travelled north to Alpena to participate their summer institute, and further learned about the importance of the Great Lakes in the story of global water health.  These experiences, along with the coaching of Nielsen Education Consulting and the support of Ethan Lowenstein in his pre-teacher education courses in development of lesson plans, Morgan is now able to bring this pilot project to other schools this year and spread this important expertise in water and food studies in her career.

Powerful Place-Based Educator Characteristics:

• Finding and inviting experts and community members into your classroom

• Collaborating with other schools/teachers in the Coalition

• Using an inquiry approach

• Creating lessons and projects that provide for student voice and student driven inquiry

• Providing opportunities for students to see the “results” their work in the school and community

• Visioning the future to discuss and debate, “What should our community be?”

• Connecting students to the local economy (e.g., garden to market, developing small

• businesses)

• Putting students in the position of “teacher” (e.g., during Community Forum, PBE conference,

• Summer Institute, presentations to their community)

• Helping students to see themselves as part of a watershed and the Great Lakes community

Methods for Data Collection

• Tracking and researching how plants (tomatoes, eggplant and lettuces) grow in a hydroponic system versus a soil system, and adjusting location of plants in tower to increase growth

• Collecting water quality information in different geographic regions of the Americas, and researching articles on local algal bloom problems in Toledo.

• Researching universal declaration of human rights, including water rights

Assessment Measures

• Students created a blog to post information about their project progress

• Students looked at three different geographic locations (Sudan, Peru and Detroit) and chose one to research  and develop a context-sensitive solution to water quality issues there.

Interdisciplinary Tie-Ins

• Morgan teachers across all disciplines for 6th grade classes, so she integrated science lessons (plant biology, water quality) with social studies (international water policy) and English (writing UN Declaration of Human Rights).

SELECTED COMMON CORE STANDARD

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organizaton, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.5 With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.1 Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.2
Determine a central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.3 Analyze in detail how a key individual, event, or idet is introduced, illustrated, and elaborated in a text (e.g. through examples or anecdotes)

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.7
Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.9 Compare and contrast one author’s presentation of events with that of another (e.g. a memoir written by and a biography on the same person).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.1 Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.5 With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.7 Conduct short research projects to answer a question, drawing on several sources and refocusing the inquiry when appropriate.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.6.1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.6.3 Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.

CCSS.ELA.LITERACY.SL.6.3 Present claims and findings, sequencing ideas logically and using pertinent descriptions, facts, and details to accentuate main ideas or themes; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.6.4 Present claims and findings, sequencing ideas logically and using pertinent descriptions, facts, and details to accentuate main ideas or themes; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation.

SCIENCE INQUIRY PROCESS

S.IP.M.1 Inquiry involves generating questions, conducting investigations, and developing solutions to problems through reasoning and observation.

L.EC.M.1 Interactions of Organisms- Organisms of one species form a population. Populations of different organisms interact and form communities. Living communities and nonliving factors interact with them to form ecosystems.

L.EC.M.4 Environmental Impact of Organisms- All organisms (including humans) cause change in the environment where they live. Some of the changes are harmful to the organism or other organism, whereas others are helpful.

L.EC.06.41 Describe how human beings are part of the ecosystem of the Earth and that human activity can purposefully, or accidentally, alter the balance in ecosystems.

S.IA.M.1 Inquiry includes an analysis and presentation of findings that lead to future questions, research, and investigations.

P.EN.M.1 Kinetic and Potential Energy- Objects and substances in motion have kinetic energy. Objects and substances may have potential energy due to their relative positions in a system. Gravitational, elastic, and chemical energy are all forms of potential energy.

P.EN.M.4 Energy Transfer- Energy is transferred from a source to a receiver by radiation, conduction, and convection. When energy is transferred from one system to another, the quantity of energy before the transfer is equal to the quantity of energy after the transfer.

L.EC.M.3 Biotic and Abiiotic Factors- The number of organisms and populations an ecosystem can support depends on the biotic (living) resources available and the abiotic (nonliving) factors, such as quality of light and water, range of temperature, and soil composition.

SELECTED SOCIAL STUDIES CONTENT EXPECTATIONS

G2.2 Describe the human characteristics of places.

G.4 Explain that human activities may be seen on Earth’s surface.

G4.4 Explain how forces of conflict and cooperation among people influence the division of the Earth’s surface and its resources.