Morrell Park Is My Community GreenFutures Elementary Student Work

With support from GreenFutures, a program of the School District of Philadelphia (SDP),  the Fairmount Water Works, the educational outreach arm of the Philadelphia Water Department, the Cloud Institute and a cohort of elementary faculty from the SDP developed and piloted two new Units of Study for the 4th and 5th grades to expand FWW’s  6-UNIT Middle School Curriculum (grades 6-8 ) Understanding the Urban Watershed Curriculum. 

These 4th Grade and 5th Grade Units provide an opportunity for upper elementary school teachers to connect their students to the community and to the environment outside of their classroom, and to one of the most fundamental elements of all living things-water. Together, teachers and students explore their role and responsibility to individually and collectively protect and sustain this shared resource for today, for tomorrow and for future generations.  

This video was made during the first pilot of the 5th grade Unit in the Fall of 2021 by the 5th graders in Room 102 and their teacher Megan Kolla at John Hancock Demonstration School.  Megan was also the principle faculty member involved in the co-creation of the unit with us.  The Essential Question was: How can we protect the land and water in our community?  We are sharing this student work with you as an exemplar of what is possible—even during a first time out pilot.  We will also analyze this student work and all student work products collected from the other pilot sites, to look for evidence of the Education for Sustainability (EfS) and Academic Standards this unit was designed to address and which we assessed for. We are very very proud of Room 102. We also appreciate them very much for being early adopters and co-creating and piloting this unit.

Link to Units: resourcewater.org