News Release

Scouts Explore Their Watershed

News Release Date: April 15, 2021

Through a Challenge Cost Share Grant from the National Park Trust, First State National Historical Park (NHP) and Stroud Water Research Center (the Stroud Center) developed an engaging youth program, called Youth Watershed Explorers, that consisted of a mix of at-home and in-park experiences. Following the Youth Watershed Explorers program, First State NHP and the Stroud Center hosted a professional development workshop for formal and non-formal educators to share the techniques and tools that worked well for the structure of the program and the lessons-learned.

When the grant application was submitted prior to COVID-19, our goal was to engage local youth with hands-on watershed education and a canoe experience at First State’s northern park site called the Brandywine Valley. With COVID-19, in-person programming was not feasible leading us to develop the program for a virtual audience that still achieved the grant’s goals.

We recruited 20, 10 to 15 year old's from local Scouts of America and Girl Scouts of USA troops. The goal of the program was for participants to explore the significance of the Brandywine Watershed through self-led, in-park learning experiences called “challenges,” with pre- and post- virtual sessions. First, participants joined the First State NHP rangers and the Stroud Center education staff for a thirty minute Zoom pre-challenge session to learn about that week’s challenge, review the supplies in their kits, and walk through the challenge workbook to ensure participants were prepared to go into the park to complete the activities on their own. A week after the pre-challenge virtual session, participants joined the First State NHP rangers and the Stroud Center education staff for a thirty minute Zoom post-challenge session and discussed their experiences and the information they gathered. The challenges, called Watershed Health, The Mighty Brandywine, and Adopt a Water Droplet, were introduced consecutively so that the learning experiences could build, week to week. Each challenge had a color-coded challenge kit that consisted of activity sheets, instructions, maps, and additional materials that participants would need to complete the challenge. The Explorer’s guardians coordinated with us to pick up the challenge kits prior to the program.

The program was designed to guarantee that each Scout would earn their Ranger Certificate (5 hours) and also allow the Scouts to potentially earn their Ranger Patch (10 hours) by completing volunteer service activities, such as litter clean-ups, while they were already in the park completing their challenges.

The second part of this program consisted of a professional development opportunity for formal and informal educators to learn from the lessons we learned and the techniques and tools that worked well for this type of program. This professional development opportunity was a virtual evening program that had more than 50 teachers participate from across the United States, Canada, and Ireland. Each educator left with something that they would be able to implement into their curriculum development or education programs. Thanks to our partners at Stroud Water Research Center, teachers from Pennsylvania were able to receive credits for their participation and teachers outside of Pennsylvania received a course completion certificate.

For the final part of this grant program, teachers will join First State NHP and Stroud staff members for a watershed education canoe trip down the Brandywine River. With safety precautions in place, there will be designated stops along the trip for teachers to get out to learn more about the watershed with hands-on experiences.