Program Descriptions
JK/SK | We are Water
This program inspires a richer understanding and appreciation of the water all around us, while engaging students’ senses and imaginations. Students will build empathy, connection, and understanding as they flow through a series of stories, songs, and games, all anchored in vital water education messages.

Students will learn about the needs of living things, including humans, and especially our need for water. With a special focus on our relationship to our local watershed, students will be building empathy and understanding through the life of a leopard frog, who flows through a series of stories, songs, and games, all anchored in vital water education messages. Students will also help develop a plan to better understand how their actions can have a positive impact in teaching our community about our local water and how we can all work to protect the water we need.

This program aims to inspire love and appreciation for the water cycle and our local water system by adventuring with a water droplet. Students will follow a droplet on its journey by getting dirty down the storm drain. They will also participate in a hands-on experiment, getting cleaned using some of the same elements as our local water treatment plant. Finally, students will celebrate with a cheers-to-water action plan when they help develop a plan to understand how their actions can have a positive impact in protecting local water.

Students will find wonder in the water all around us as they play the role of scientist, problem solver, and change maker, fostering a special relationship with our local watershed and the biotic and human-made features that support our clean, healthy tap water. Anchored in the Growth and Changes in Plants and Soils in the Environment curriculum strands of Grade 3 science, students will flow through a series of stories, hands-on water experiments, and action plans to support water education. Students will demonstrate their prior knowledge and help develop a plan to better understand how their actions can have a positive impact in teaching our community about our local water and how we can all work to protect the water we need.

Students will be learning about the communities in their local watershed and will be investigating the interdependence of plants and animals as they construct a food chain to support the beautiful and powerful, Osprey. They will create a watershed by using their knowledge about how communities are structured and will further investigate how human activities impact habitats and communities.

Students will be learning about their local watershed and the structures that deliver water from the Otonabee River to their homes and schools. Students will work in groups and use technological problem-solving skills to construct a water tower. They will then create their own watershed and evaluate the impact of society and the environment on structures and natural systems.

Students will be learning about the biodiversity of natural water communities by utilizing scientific inquiry and research skills to identify invertebrate organisms. After completing identification of the species, students will then complete a biodiversity and resilience activity that will give them an opportunity to study inter-relationships between species and the impact biodiversity has on stability of a water community.

Students will be using their inquiry skills to identify benthic invertebrates. They will make conclusions about the balance of local ecosystems by comparing the biotic and abiotic elements of that ecosystem. They will also work as a team to protect their local watershed from by-products of human activities using the knowledge gained.

Students will be learning about the importance of water technology and its role in restoring contaminated sites. Students will think critically about how to protect their local watersheds and then design, build, and test their own water system device to purify water.