Sea Grant Outreach Program Educates Area Teachers, Students on Lake Champlain Basin

SUNY Plattsburgh will play host to more than two dozen K-12 educators from area school districts when they join environmental educators for a day of professional development Thursday, Aug. 20.

According to Tori DesRocher, watershed education coordinator for Lake Champlain Sea Grant in partnership with the Lake Champlain Research Institute, the six-hour program will feature hands-on field work, interactive activities, and classroom exercises that align with the New York State Education Department’s K-12 Science Learning Standards.

These standards require K-12 educators to teach skills used in real-world applications. Additionally, they have to connect what students are learning at their grade levels to careers that use those skills.

“By the time students graduate high school, they’ll have eight to 10 careers that they’re aware of that they can apply what they’ve learned since kindergarten,” DesRocher said. “We want to step that up. Teachers really respond well to single-day training programs.”

Project WILD Educational Program

As a result, DesRocher — in collaboration with Sea Grant partner University of Vermont as well as the LCRI — developed the Aug. 20 in-service day using Project WILD, the educational program developed by the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies.

DesRocher said facilitators will help participating educators learn how to use the association’s nearly 600-page Project WILD guides, which are theirs to take back to their classrooms. Participants will also hear from regional experts — including faculty from SUNY Plattsburgh’s Center for Earth and Environmental Science — who will discuss their organizations and agencies, resources offered and career connections.

Facilitating workshops like the Project WILD training day is only part of what DesRocher and the Lake Champlain Sea Grant program is about, she said.

As watershed education coordinator for Sea Grant at SUNY Plattsburgh, DesRocher educates area students and their teachers about the Lake Champlain basin. The university’s LCRI serves as the New York hub for the Watershed Alliance, which provides curriculum, equipment, and instruction, as well as continuing education for teachers by providing professional development opportunities such as the Project WILD training day.

“We lead watershed science education for 5,000-plus K-12 students in the Lake Champlain watershed,” DesRocher said. Upcoming programs include:

The Lake Champlain Sea Grant outreach project first began in 1998 when the Senate passed a bill reclassifying Lake Champlain as the sixth Great Lake so that universities in New York and Vermont could receive federal funds meant for marine and Great Lakes research. Champlain held the Great Lakes designation all of 18 days when Congress revoked the title but kept the federal funding intact.

Partner with UVM

In 1999, UVM and SUNY Plattsburgh partnered together and officially launched the Lake Champlain Sea Grant Outreach Project. Nearly two decades later in May 2018, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration designated Lake Champlain Sea Grant as a full Sea Grant Institute.

Kylie Kress is a Watershed Alliance education graduate assistant who has worked with DesRocher since she was an undergraduate intern, teaching K-12 students “through hands-on watershed science programs in the Lake Champlain Basin,” she said.

Planting a Seed to Stay Curious’

“Through that role, I came to realize how much I enjoy environmental education. There’s something really rewarding about knowing that even a single experience in the field may plant a seed for a student to stay curious and care about their local environment,” the Little Falls, N.Y., native said. “My time with the Watershed Alliance ultimately helped me decide that this was the work I wanted to pursue.

“Coming back to the Watershed Alliance as a graduate assistant while pursuing my master’s in natural resources and ecology at SUNY Plattsburgh feels full-circle. The program that helped me find my direction as an undergraduate is now giving me the opportunity to continue pursuing it at the graduate level,” Kress said.

Kress said she has been “fortunate to learn from Tori throughout that journey. She is incredibly knowledgeable about environmental education, and her passion for teaching is something I really admire,” she said. “Working alongside her has taught me a lot about what it means to be an effective educator. I’m excited to see how this next chapter with the Watershed Alliance continues to shape the direction of my career.”

For more information on the Aug. 20 training day or the Lake Champlain Sea Grant program, contact DesRocher at 518-564-3172 or email [email protected].

Story, DesRocher Photo By Associate Director of Communications Gerianne Downs; Kress Photo Provided