Community Connections to Our Watershed began over twenty years ago. Each year the education staff from Lackawanna and Nescopeck State Parks coordinate groups of five students and one teacher from local schools to participate in this environmental forum. Learners visit their local parks and other public lands while meeting conservation professionals doing the unending work to ensure our communities have equitable access to the clean waters that are essential for us and our ecosystems to survive and thrive. An overview of the program with information, pictures, and highlights from the field trips can be found at https://tinyurl.com/CCTW2024
The Lackawanna County Teams included: Carbondale, Forest City, Lackawanna Trail, Lakeland, Mountain View, Old Forge, Riverside, Western Wayne, and Wayne Highlands. The Luzerne County Teams included: Crestwood, Hanover, HAAS, HACC, Hazleton, Northwest, Tunkhannock, and Wyoming Area.
This year Western Wayne students attended field trips to Keystone College, the Old Forge borehole, Lackawanna College Environmental Education Center, Sweeney’s Beach in Scranton, and Frances Slocum State Park. On these excursions students learned about what makes a healthy watershed, how we monitor a watershed, and finally solutions being made to keep our watershed clean.
On May 7, 2024 these trips culminated in a student presentation banquet at Montage Mountain. Western Wayne presented their project titled, “Little Fish, Big World to the other participating schools. The students used what they learned on their field trips to create a video project with interactive questions that will be used for future classes of Western Wayne High School. The project can be found at https://tinyurl.com/Little-Fish-Big-World
These trips and experiences were made possible by Pennsylvania American Water Company, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), and The Watershed Education Program designed by DCNR.
