Learn

Rivers need people who understand them. Most science education asks students to consume science; the work here asks them to do it, and asks everyone else to come along.

Project FLOW: students as watershed scientists

Future Leaders of Our Watersheds is a chapter-based program: a school, a youth organization, or an agency runs a local chapter that monitors its own waterbody, and DANalytics provides the platform, onboarding, data tools, and support behind it. Students collect real measurements, clean real sensor records, compare their river against the public record, and produce a Hydrologic Report Card at the end of the year.

The founding chapter is Eagle Valley Middle School on the Carson River, led by Amy Riddle, a credentialed science educator. The science in the platform comes from a working environmental scientist; the teaching comes from a teacher with her own students, against her own standards. They are married, which makes the feedback loop a dinner table rather than a consulting contract.

Read about Project FLOW, the founding chapter, and how to bring it to your school →

Teaching resources

The atlas carries a Teach it shelf: lesson plans, worksheets, and readings a teacher can download and use, each paired with a view of the atlas that shows the idea happening in the Carson basin. It opens with public-domain EPA materials on what a watershed is and grows as Carson-specific lessons are written.

Open the Teach it shelf →

Science for everyone

Every story on the atlas carries a plain-language summary written for a curious community member, and the USGS publications behind each story carry one too. Each summary says how it was made and whether a person has reviewed it, so a draft never passes as checked. Audio overviews of the stories are on the way.

Start with a story →

For educators who want to go further

Guest lectures, field days where students see how a real measurement is made, and help designing a monitoring program that fits a curriculum are all things DANalytics does. Write to Daniel and describe your class.