Note: Content in its original presentaion can still be accessed here
The below matrix allows access to the same content but in a more user-friendly approach.

Acadia B-WET will provide Maine high schools with place-based and inquiry-based Meaningful Watershed Education Experiences, in which students learn and apply a series of core science curriculum concepts through their own research in a local watershed system.

What is a Meaningful Watershed Education Experience?
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) defines Meaningful Watershed Education Experiences as:

• Experiences that are investigative or project oriented.
• Experiences that are an integral part of the instructional program.
• Experiences that are part of a sustained activity.
• Experiences that consider the watershed as a system.
• Experiences that are place-based.
• Experiences that are enhanced by NOAA products, services, or personnel (such as interactions with NOAA staff, or use of NOAA satellite and monitoring data or educational materials).

Students will practice developing research questions, reasoning, managing and making sense of data, and communicating research results to peers, scientists, and local community members. Through Acadia B-WET, students will have an opportunity to contribute meaningful data to Maine’s body of scientific knowledge about watershed systems. Their investigations will be relevant to watershed research happening throughout the Northeast, and will include issues of special interest to National Parks, like Acadia.

Same content, old style:

Unit 1: An Introduction to Mercury in the Environment

   Links embedded in activity for the board game are inactive. Here are the files:

• Rules and cards
• Pieces
• Game board for 11x17 paper
• OR Game board for 2 sheets 8.5x11 paper: part 1   part 2

Unit 2: Mercury in Foodwebs: You are what you eat - and then some!

Unit 3: Identifying the key questions and creating hypotheses

Unit 4 has several versions, depending on what material or organism each class is sampling

Unit 4 for aquatic macroinvertebrates like dragonfly nymphs*: Aquatic Sampling: Collecting for different hypotheses

Useful resource: dragonfly nymph fact sheet

Unit 4 for fish**: Fish Sampling: Collecting for different hypotheses

Unit 4 for hair***: Hair Sampling: Collecting for different hypotheses

Unit 5: Data analysis

Unit 6: What does it mean? Discussing and presenting results

* Some states and areas may require permission to sample invertebrates to be sure that endangered species are not targets of sampling. Contact the project scientist (see "Contact" tab). 

** Please contact the project scientist well in advance of planning to sample any vertebrates, so we can work to get you the appropriate permission and approval

*** Contact the project scientist if you need help figuring out how to sample so that your test subjects are completely anonymous. We do not want anyone to be able to match people with samples - but there are ways we can test hypotheses even with grouped and anonymous samples.