Toolkit Planning Documents
Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience (MWEE) Toolkit Supporting Documents
Throughout the MWEE Toolkit, numerous planning documents and resources are provided to assist you in integrating a MWEE into your learning environment. These documents are found within each of the essential elements of a MWEE: Issue Investigation, Outdoor Field Experiences, Synthesis and Conclusions, and an Environmental Action Project. Additionally, the Supporting Practices complement the essential elements to ensure the successful implementation of a MWEE with students. The documents from these pages are compiled below for easy access to the materials. Use the buttons below to navigate to NOAA documents supporting your efforts in each component of the MWEE process.
Did You Know?
Essential elements of the MWEE are NOT meant to be linear! The different elements can occur repeatedly throughout the MWEE.
Pick and choose from the supporting documents and resources in the toolkit to design your MWEE.
Issue Definition
Supporting Documents from NOAA
Create and assess your driving question using the NOAA MWEE Audit Tool.
Work towards developing the driving question and supporting questions for your MWEE.
Use the Developing Driving Questions planning document to create effective driving questions.
Plan your Issue Investigations to support your MWEE using pages from the NOAA Planning Toolkit.
Build student success using Supporting Practices found in a selection from the NOAA MWEE Guide.
Anchor your MWEE using Great Lakes Literacy Principle 1 can help connect students’ lived experiences to what is happening in their watershed and then to the broader Great Lakes watershed.
NOAA's Environmental Literacy Model (ELM) can guide you through the Issue Definition and Investigation process.
Outdoor Field Experiences
Supporting Documents from NOAA
Plan your Outdoor Field Experiences using the Incorporating Outdoor Field Experiences Planning Tool, a portion of the MWEE Environmental Literacy Model (ELM).
When thinking about Outdoor Field Experiences, consider what natural features, equipment, facilities, and/or programs would be needed to make the location accessible for all your students to investigate the driving and supporting questions.
Anchor your MWEE using Great Lakes Literacy Principle 5 to help connect students’ lived experiences to what is happening in their watershed and the broader Great Lakes watershed.
Use the MWEE Audit Tool for Outdoor Field Experiences to strengthen an existing MWEE or help plan a new MWEE to ensure that the essential element of outdoor field experiences is meaningfully included.
Synthesis and Conclusions
Supporting Documents from NOAA
Support your students' synthesis of their investigation findings using the Claims, Evidence, and Reasoning worksheet.
Environmental Action Project
Supporting Documents from NOAA
Provide students with the framework to successfully plan and implement an environmental action project using NOAA Planning Pages.
Use NOAA's Environmental Literacy Model (ELM) to help plan your Environmental Action Project. The NOAA Informed Action Planning Page from the ELM is useful for moving from issue identification to environmental action.
There are many types of environmental action projects students can plan for stewardship in their local schoolyard or community.
Help students move from claims to informed action using the student page and plan their action project using the Environmental Action Planning Document Student Pages.
Supporting Practices
Supporting Documents from NOAA
The MWEE Audit Tool for Supporting Practices can be used to determine if your program meets the full definition of the MWEE.