By Nate Drag | March 2025
What happened?
On August 2nd and 5th, 2024, 21 teachers from across New York’s Great Lakes region participated in two workshops on the shores of Lake Erie and Lake Ontario in Dunkirk and Sodus Point, NY. Attendees learned about local coastal resilience projects and played The Watershed Game, an interactive watershed management board game they can use with their students.
New York’s Great Lakes coastal communities face new challenges from fluctuating water levels, more frequent storm events, and less winter ice coverage. While these conditions pose threats to these communities, they also provide case studies that can engage students in real-world phenomena that require interdisciplinary problem-solving. To educate their students on these challenges and the solutions NY’s communities are using, teachers and educators need to learn about the projects and have the necessary educational tools and materials required to bring these events into their classrooms.
During the workshops, participants went on guided site tours of local coastal resilience projects with experts from Chautauqua County Soil and Water Conservation District and New York Sea Grant, as well as the Mayor of Sodus Point.
Following the tours, participants were trained on and played The Watershed Game Classroom Version, an interactive role-playing watershed management game developed by Minnesota Sea Grant. During the game play, participants debated solutions to water pollution scenarios, using the knowledge they had just gained from the site tours.
Technically, a watershed is an area of land where rainfall and snowmelt drain to join a single water body, such as a river or lake. In reality, a watershed is more than just a geographic area. It includes the landscape, plants and wildlife, groundwater and surface water, and people with their actions and cultures.
Twenty-one educators learned and explored at the two workshops. Each teacher was given their own Watershed Game to use in their classrooms and programs.
Before this workshop, 67% of participants stated they had no or minimal knowledge of coastal resilience. Following the workshop, 50% stated they now had above average knowledge of these organisms.
Similarly, prior to the workshop, only 33% of participants reported that they were confident in explaining coastal resilience content to their learners. Following the workshop, 94% of participants reported they were now confident.
These Great Lakes Coastal Resilience Workshops were successful professional development opportunities that engaged teachers in hands-on practice in the field and lab, leading to an increase in their knowledge of an important environmental topic and in their confidence in explaining it to their learners. This program was made possible with funding from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
About New York Sea Grant
New York Sea Grant is one of 34 Sea Grant programs supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in coastal and Great Lakes states that encourage the wise stewardship of our marine resources through research, education, and outreach.
