Monroe Community College received a generous grant from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as part of the Bay-Watershed Education and Training (B-WET) Upper Susquehanna program. The two-year grant (2015-2017) with an extension into 2018 will train teachers and inform educators in New York about watersheds and related topics. Funding will support instructional activities in conjunction with the New York Geographic Alliance programs.
 

Next Watershed Workshops

B-WET Watershed Symposium (May 31, 2018) - Flyer
Registration

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Archived Workshops

Mapping and Geospatial Workshop #3 on Friday, March 9 (2018)
Location: TST BOCES (Ithaca)
Please contact Tim McDonnell if interested

Map Interpretation Workshop (April 26)
Location: Museum of the Earth (Ithaca, NY)

Outdoor Workshop on Sat, May 14th (2017)
Sherburne, NY (Rogers Env. Ed. Center) - Flyer!

Mapping and Geospatial Workshop #2 (2017)
Location: TST BOCES (Ithaca)
Workshop Flyer!
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B-WET Workshop Materials

Free Teaching materials!

Interested in becoming a member?
Contact Tim McDonnell.

National Geographic's Field Scope Training Flyer

The Susquehanna River has its headwaters mostly in New York's Southern Tier Region (Elmira, Corning, Hornell, Binghamton, Cortland, Oneonta, etc.). So, even though we are a couple hundred miles away from the Chesapeake Bay, New York is an important part of the system. When we train teachers about watersheds, we will include field work on testing stream quality.

These results can be reported to FieldScope, a web software for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed created by National Geographic. Google Earth and ArcGIS Online will be used as well.  Students and educators can view the data and compare it to tests in other places along the Susquehanna. Part of our mission is to get students out into streams, testing water quality, and reporting the data to FieldScope. Since the watershed "begins" in New York, they need our data. So far is very little online, but we aim to change that. It is important that students learn how they are connected to other places, a basic geographic concept. We will also do activities to model the watershed, and look at maps, new and old, to see how the region has changed over time.

At our workshops, we discussed issues pertaining to human geography. For example, most of the people living in New York's Southern Tier can be found near the Susquehanna River or one of its tributaries. Farmland is generally fertile in these valleys, but they are prone to flooding. In 1779, American troops led by Gen. Clinton and Sullivan followed the river to invade the heart of Iroquoia. Crops and villages were destroyed, and the Six Nations of the Haudenosaunee never recovered from this campaign. We hope that teachers will understand how the geography of this region impacted our history in the early days of this nation.

New York Watershed

New York states' watershed is quite varied, with rivers flowing into Lake Erie, Ohio river system (Allegany river), Atlantic Ocean (Hudson river), St. Lawrence sea way (St. Lawrence River), and into Lake Ontario (Genesee river).  In total there are about 17 major watersheds in New York state.  A watershed drains an area of land into a specific body of water.  Watersheds are typically divided by high elevation (mountains, hills, ridges).  Rivers in New York flow east, west, north, and south.  It is all about gravity!  For more on specific watersheds in New York state, go to: http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/26561.html