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"Since our ROW Teacher Training Workshop we have been thinking, feeling, visualizing, talking, and drawing our special watershed/forest environment. Thank you for this opportunity for our children to 'speak' with the children of the world!"
—Linda Cover, educator, Watsonville, CA
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One Square Block
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Every block tells a story—of plants and animals, history and culture, soil and water. One Square Block™, an innovative collaboration between River of Words and the San Francisco Estuary Partnership, invites students to explore a single square block in their community—their own neighborhood, a local park, the schoolyard—and create poetry, art, and reports about what they find there.
Younger students may create field guides to plants, trees, and animals on their block; they’ll learn where their water comes from, where the rain runoff goes, and who lived there a long time ago. Older students may investigate land use, transportation, zoning, and other specifics; they conduct oral histories and learn to identify architectural details, weather patterns, and geographic information systems (GIS) coordinates. Each block project will post a detail-rich, standardized “block print” online and compare its block with other blocks from around the world.
One Square Block is designed to hone students’ skills of observation, critical thinking, and problem-solving, all necessary tools for effective watershed stewards.
The project, which launched in 2010 in 10 Northern California counties, includes an art and poetry contest whose winners are announced during the River of Words International Art and Poetry awards ceremony. One Square Block will eventually include an exciting and interactive place-based curriculum for the K-12 grades.
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