Diving deeper with watershed educators in Pennsylvania’s state capital!

by Tara Muenz, Stroud Water Research Center

Stroud Center educators and grant partners presented the next phase of the site to over 30 watershed educators from across the Commonwealth at the bi-annual ‘Dive Deeper’ conference in Harrisburg, PA. Through a 40-minute interactive session Assistant Director of Education, Tara Muenz, presented background on the project, and the what, why and how of the next phase of the site. With laptops, smart devices, keys, ID cards and preserved specimens, the goal was to show the benefits of using this kind of digital tool when training others and when learning how to identify with more fun and ease! Many attendees came from backgrounds of both formal and informal educators including state park and extension staff, teachers, trout unlimited chapters, nature centers and more.
 
Kicking it off, we showed the home page. Immediately you could see the excitement in the attendees faces when over 100 images of aquatic macroinvertebrates came ‘live’ staring right at you. 

This view of the home page was our launch point for two activities to engage the attendees on how to use the website themselves and for training others.

Activity #1 focused on flowing through the site an general navigation:

​Activity #2 asked attendees to compare two Orders and two Families within these orders.

We needed more time for the activities, but had great feedback so far on the utility of the site with suggestions on how to make this site more useful such as including emergence times and connections of these taxa to species of flora. 

Our next presentation will be in Spokane, Washington on October 10th  (5:05-5:45pm) at the North American Association for Environmental Education’s annual conference. Come see us!