COA Launches Watershed Mindfullness Education Initiative

On November 30th Clean Ocean Action launched its Watershed Mindfulness Education Initiative at the last Rally for the Navesink meeting of 2016 held at the Monmouth Boat Club. Representatives from school communities in the Navesink watershed attended the meeting to learn how their schools can improve local water quality.

Photo courtesy of Charlie Komar

Clean Ocean Action is promoting Watershed Mindfulness – an understanding that we are all connected to and responsible for the health of our vast network of waterways, which ultimately lead to the ocean. Watershed Mindfulness is a state of awareness that we live in a network of waterways that connect communities to a larger body of water, the ocean, and we are all responsible for keeping it healthy. COA seeks to engage the education community to help connect the drops and bring Watershed Mindfulness into K-12 curriculum.

Tanya Oznowich from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) spoke about the Next Generation Science Standards and the collaborative work that her department has done with the New Jersey Department of Education (DOE) and the Alliance of New Jersey Environmental Educators (ANJEE).

School community members were encouraged to sign up to participate in future collaborations with Rally for the Navesink in the hopes of creating Professional Learning Communities (PLC) in their schools and beyond.  The goal of the PLC would be to provide opportunities to regularly articulate with colleagues about Watershed Mindfulness lessons. Rally for the Navesink looks forward to working closely with educators in their endeavor to create the next generation of Navesink River stewards.

If you are connected with a school community in the Navesink Watershed and are interested in helping the Rally connect its message to your school, please contact Amanda Wheeler at Clean Ocean Action at citizens@cleanoceanaction.org or 732-872-0111. Presentations can be found at CleanOceanAction.org. (See additional Navesink story on cover.)