Curriculum

Teachers, Please understand we know that time is of essence when teaching students within a limited time frame. As a suggestion, consider using this curriculum to replace or enhance an existing water unit that covers real issues about water quantity and quality. I especially want to emphasize the use of this curriculum for dry climatic areas that should educate their resident students about their own surroundings in order to heighten their awareness of water issues in their community.

Consider having the students only read the overviews in each section to familiarize them with the units, and then start the Activities. Another approach is to start with the Activities that will intend for the students to go to each section to search for the required information needed to complete the tasks.

There are a variety of ways to assign the task work in each section.

• Promote group work. This encourages collaboration and communication among students, teachers, community and public leaders to recognize the importance of teamwork to solve environmental and regulatory issues.
• Some students prefer working alone; therefore, some tasks are designed for students to do individual work as well.
• The tasks can be flexible with time. The entire curriculum may be done in two weeks or less when highlighting the individual sections for specific requirements.

The final assessment may refer to what are the overall problems and possible solutions for the Paso del Norte Region and what can other geographical areas learn from the examples and proposed solutions that the students have discovered.

Teachers Assessments

Assessment has been defined as methods utilized to clarify and understand the level of knowledge that a learner has obtained. Every section has tasks that the students will accomplish. The purpose of these tasks are to provide understanding to real life water situations and how to make critical water issues meaningful to the student who will learn to make educated decisions about their drinking water.

There are numerous tools to use for student assessment. Just to name a few are:

• Rubric
• Poster Presentations
• Journal
• Media Presentations