Flint River GREEN Bridges: Year 1 Complete!

The 2019-2020 school year was an exciting roller coaster of events! In our first year of our expanded program, we faced public health issues that kept our students indoors and learning in new ways beyond the intended Bridges curriculum. Bridges is a 10-week, robust, interdisciplinary watershed education curriculum for 6th – 8th grade students and is paired with ongoing teacher professional development opportunities which assists educators in providing meaningful watershed education experiences for youth. The program hinges on water quality monitoring at a local stream and allows students to explore their communities and work together with community partners to explore stewardship action.

In the fall of 2019, our community was struck with a mosquito-borne illness called Easter Equine Encephalitis (EEE) which prevented all but two of our schools from implementing their fall plans. The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent school closures further prevented our remaining five pilot schools from implementing the Bridges program during the 2019-2020 school year.  Program staff worked diligently to provide teachers will complimenting distance learning materials and three teachers were able to assign these lessons virtually for their students in the spring of 2020.  Despite all of these complexities, fifteen teachers progressed through the training opportunities and speak favorably about the potential for this program. We are pleased to have received such positive feedback in our pilot year evaluation report.

Check it out for yourself here: Evaluation Report: Bridges Pilot Year 2019-2020