On July 2, 2013, Governor Martin O’Malley met with teachers and educators from across the state to explore how the next generation of Marylanders could help restore the Bay, one stream at a time.
Through a newly proposed statewide stream restoration partnership, schools would adopt the streams and tributaries on or near their properties and turn their restoration into a learning experience.
In addition to taking students out of the classroom for experiential learning, the new collaborative will help schools meet the State’s Environmental Literacy and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) requirements.
The recent meeting, arranged in collaboration with the Maryland Partnership for Children in Nature, set the groundwork for the ongoing partnership. Schools and their teachers will conduct lessons around their stream’s ecology, including health problems and possible solutions.
Students will monitor the water quality and work to improve the stream’s overall health with actions such as planting trees along their banks to create buffer areas.
The Maryland Stream Restoration Challenge has allocated $6 million to local governments and organizations to establish 1,000 acres of stream-side forests by 2015. This competitive grant program was designed to support Bay restoration while creating opportunities for students to engage in service-learning and environmental literacy projects.
source: MD DNR
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