Click window to close
Background
The National
Adopt-A-Watershed Program
The Knox County Adopt-A-Watershed (AAW) Program is an affiliate
of the national Adopt-A-Watershed Program (http://www.adopt-a-watershed.org/).
AAW aspires to give students a sense of community and awareness
that they can make an environmental difference while also fostering
a lifelong quest for knowledge about the environment. The national
AAW program is based on a K through 12 science curriculum that
emphasizes using the adopted watersheds as living laboratories
and promoting environmental stewardship through community service
projects. Founded in 1989, the program is now implemented in
25 states and has involved over 50,000 students.
How
did Adopt-A-Watershed arrive in Knox County?
AAW first came to our region via the Tennessee Valley Authority.
TVA had been conducting a Teacher Water Quality Monitoring program
and, although successful, coordinators of the program felt it
lacked a broader watershed perspective and did not sufficiently
emphasize environmental stewardship. The AAW Program provided
the missing pieces to their program. In 1997, a Tennessee Valley
team attended the national AAW leadership training and came back
to implement AAW in Southwest Va. and the Tri-cities region in
Northeast TN.
Evolution
of the Upper TN River (Knox Co.) Adopt-A-Watershed
Program
In 1997, the Water Quality Forum (WQF) in conjunction with the
Knox County Schools piloted the first AAW program in six schools,
adopting six local watersheds with one science teacher participating
from each school. Over the last five years, the Knox County AAW
program has more than tripled the number of participating teachers,
doubled the number of involved schools and expanded to nine watersheds.
In the spring of 2002, an Upper TN River (Knox Co.)
AAW Leadership Team returned to the national AAW’s
Leadership Institute with the vision of taking the program
to a new level. As a part of our strategic plan, we identified
three primary goals for the Upper TN River Program: first,
to raise awareness of it within the school system and
the community; second, to strengthen and expand it; and
third, to make it sustainable. We also made the decision
to transition its name from the “Knox Co. AAW Program” to
that of the “Upper Tennessee River AAW Program.” We
felt it was important that our name depict the geographic
boundaries of our watershed so that it better reflect
the very essence of this program.
Click window to close
|
