Decorah Middle School "One Well" Program Wins Award for Excellence in Environmental Education

(Left to right): Decorah Middle School teachers Steve Larson, Amy Pipho, Brigit Storhoff, Jesse Lyon, Carrie Reed, Sarah Casterton, Winneshiek County Conservation Education and Outreach Coordinator Lilly Jensen and DMS teacher Jonathon Carlson

Eight Decorah Middle School 7th grade teachers have won an award for Excellence in Environmental Education.

Sarah Casterton, Brigit Storhoff, Carrie Reed, Jesse Lyon, Amy Pipho, Jonathon Carlson, Steve Larson and Zach Fromm have been recognized by the Iowa Association of Naturalists and the Iowa Conservation Education Coalition, receiving the Award for Excellence in Environmental Education for their "One Well" unit.

The Decorah Middle School 7th grade team worked to weave science, geography, and English together for the interdisciplinary "One Well" unit.  The year-long unit began as "Trout Days" in 1993 and continues its focus on both local and global water issues. This year teachers brought in a variety of speakers throughout the year to discuss various water topics with the 7th grade students. The students made terrariums in plastic bottles and explored current topics such as the algific talus slope habitat destruction connected with species extinction. Students saw learning concepts come to life during a fall field trip to Lake Meyer where they visited a wetland, collected macroinvertebrates, and even chopped open goldenrod galls to illustrate the various organisms in the surrounding environment. In the spring, the 7th graders spent two days touring different locations in Decorah such as the Decorah Fish Hatchery, the Decorah Wastewater Treatment Plant and Upper Iowa Organics.

In English class, the students read A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, a novel about the struggles African women and girls often face walking miles every day to collect dirty water from a well for their families. They also engaged with the writer and characters in the novel by writing them letters of gratitude. The students walked almost four miles to the Upper Iowa River to collect water and haul it back to school in ice cream buckets and open milk jugs. Through this outreach, the students raised $5,000 for Water to Thrive, an organization that works with rural Africans to provide access to clean, safe drinking water in their communities.