Environmental Education Homeschool Programs

We welcome the opportunity to work with local homeschool groups. Working with homeschoolers allows us to combine the strength of your drive to provide high quality, individualized education with our ability to create unique, science-based lessons tailored to the specific needs of your group. Below are some examples of popular topics, but remember, we’re happy to custom design a program to fit with your group’s area of study.

To arrange an NRWA program for your homeschool group, or for more information, please contact Stacey Chilcoat, NRWA River Classroom Director, at (978) 448-0299, or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Homeschool Program Topics Include:

• River Classroom®
• Benthic Macro-Invertebrate Investigations
• The Enviroscape Watershed Model: Non-Point Source Pollution Issues
• Service Learning Projects (i.e. trail improvement)
• Winter Animal Tracking
• Wildlife in Our Watershed: Signs and Adaptive Behaviors of Local Animals (spring, summer, fall)
• Biodiversity CSI: Invasive Plant Research Projects
• Adventure Hikes within the Watershed

Environmental Education in Your Schoolyard, Classroom, or Neighborhood

NRWA professional educators can come to your school to lead place-based lessons in your classroom, in your schoolyard, along nearby streams, or on nearby conservation or public properties. We know how to make the best use of local natural resources as outdoor classrooms for powerful hands-on science lessons that will engage your students.

Each NRWA environmental education lesson or project is designed to meet the needs of individual teachers, administrations, and school districts. Curriculum focuses on science topics that teachers need to address, and meets the requirements of Massachusetts and New Hampshire standards for science and technology.

Lessons may be taught in the classroom, such as Wildlife Adaptations or the Water Cycle, or outdoors, such as Tree Circumference, Plant Adaptations, and Maple Sugaring, or they may combine both an indoor and outdoor component.

Below is a list of current lesson topics, but remember, we have the flexibility and knowledge to design a new lesson to meet your needs. If you think you’d like the NRWA to present a series of lessons for your class, please consider our Scientist-in-Residence program.

If your school needs funding assistance, the NRWA may be able to work with your school or district to find financial support through grants and other funding sources.

To have the NRWA present a program at your school, or for more information, please contact Stacey Chilcoat, NRWA River Classroom Director, at (978) 448-0299, or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Current Classroom and Schoolyard Lesson Topics

I/O: indoor and/or outdoor
I: indoor only
O: outdoors only

All Seasons

• Enviroscape (run-off pollution model where students create solutions) I/O
• Wildlife Adaptations: (inherited vs. non-inherited characteristics) I/O
• Wildlife Adaptations: (instinctive vs. learned behaviors) I/O
• Plant Adaptations (environmental effects, seasonal changes) I/O
• Water Cycle Experiment I
• Soil Lab: (properties and retention) I/O
• Moon Phases and Earth Movement I
• Mapping the Schoolyard: contour maps and 3-d model building I/O
• Math Studies: calculating diversity and graphing species I/O
• Environmental Games such as Project WILD “Oh Deer”, Project PLT “Every Tree for Itself” or Project WET “Journey of a Raindrop” I/O
• Stone Wall Investigations O
• Math in the Field (measuring in the schoolyard) I/O
• The Scientific Process: developing your own hypothesis and testing it in the school yard I/O
• Tree Survey of the School yard O
• Engineering in Nature: nature designs and man-made inventions I/O
• Bones Investigations (wildlife) I
• Birds of the Schoolyard O

Fall, Spring, and Summer

• Water Erosion and Prevention I/O
• Plant Diversity in the Schoolyard (for school with lawn habitats) O
• Forest, Field or Aquatic Ecosystems: plants, insects or small animal survey O
• Forest, Field or Aquatic Ecosystems: how organisms interact and function in that ecosystem. O
• Producers, Consumers and Decomposers in a Forest I/O
• Producers, Consumers and Decomposers in an Aquatic Ecosystem I/O
• Macro-invertebrate Study (aquatic insects/life cycles) I/O
• Watershed Survey of Neighborhood O
• Shoreline Survey (need a stream or river) O
• Chemistry Testing of Lake of Pond O
• Flow Studies in Stream or River: calculating velocity O
• Invasive Plants: Identification and Competition I/O
• Seeds: How do they Travel? O
• Ant Baiting and Tracking in the School-yard O
• Insect Survey of the School-yard O
• Plot Studies: using square meter plots to graph species O
• Vernal Pool Investigations (spring only I/O)
• Citizen Scientists Programs:
  1. Project BudBurst: This project is a network of people across the United States who monitor plants as the seasons change. It is national field campaign designed to engage the public in the collection of important ecological data based on the timing of leafing, flowering, and fruiting of plants (plant phenophases). Project BudBurst participants make careful observations of these plant phenophases. The data are being collected in a consistent manner across the country so that scientists can use the data to learn more about the responsiveness of individual plant species to changes in climate locally, regionally, and nationally.
  2. National Wildlife Federation: Certify your schoolyard as a “Certified Wildlife Habitat” or become involved in the Wildlife Watch program.

Winter Only

• Maple Sugaring/ Photosynthesis/ Plant Structures I/O
• Animals In Winter I/O

Long Term Projects

• How Ecosystems Change Overtime: a series in the school yard (4 visits minimum)
• Nature Trail Development, Maintenance or Restoration (service project with students)
• Service Learning Projects in the Schoolyard or Conservation Property (investigate an environmental “problem” and take action to improve the community)

Service Learning: Combining Environmental Education with Community Service

Service Learning projects give children, and young adults, an opportunity to combine significant community service with instruction and reflection. NRWA Service Learning projects are designed to give the participants a deeper understanding of the issues involved in watershed conservation, and most importantly, an awareness of their own role in protecting the health of their streams, ponds, and rivers. The participants learn about the broad diversity of life that depends, like them, on clean water.

By encouraging participants to use their critical thinking skills to solve problems, Service Learning inspires them to take effective action. Participants learn, for example, that cavity nesting birds like the Eastern Bluebird have lost much of their habitat to development, and that a successful antidote to this has been the creation of nest box trails. They can then become part of the solution by building the nest boxes themselves and setting them on location. Participants also learn how to monitor the boxes so that they can continue their Service Learning by reporting their findings to institutions like the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Taking part in a Service Learning project can be a transformative experience. Whether they build a wheelchair accessible bridge on conservation land, make bat boxes, post turtle crossing signs, or undertake a five month vernal pool monitoring program, Service Learning students gain a wide variety of practical skills. Above all, they leave the programs with a sense of personal achievement and of truly making a difference.

The NRWA assists school and communities with many Service Learning (aligned with curricula) and community service projects. Some projects are funded through grants, but a school or group could sponsor a project.

Examples of Student Service Learning Projects

• The Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge (ONWR) Curriculum Model Project which provided an opportunity for students to inventory invasive plants, use turtle tracking equipment, and develop a Students Field Guide to the ONWR.
• “Service Learning in Lunenburg, MA: Fifth Graders Use Math, Science and English Language Arts While Investigating Different Ways to Address Invasive Species” provided students with an opportunity to monitor Purple Loosestrife, apply several different control techniques (including beetles), compare the techniques a year later, and then present information to the Lunenburg School Board.
• The Ayer Community Nature Trail and Watershed Monitoring Project allowed students to survey a piece of property near the school, plan the course of a nature trail, and build the trail for the use of the entire school.
• The Oxbow Schoolhouse in Devens studied pollination, native pollinators, and invasive species then built a pollinator garden.
• Boy Scouts in Shirley learned about wildlife habitat and Wood Ducks, then built and erected Wood Duck nest boxes in local wetlands.
• Children at the Lura White Elementary School in Shirley learned about Eastern Bluebirds and habitat for Bluebirds, then built and erected Bluebird nest boxes in a field near the school where they could observe the raising of Bluebird chicks.

For more information about Service Learning Projects, please contact Stacey Chilcoat, NRWA River Classroom Director, at (978) 448-0299, or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Scientist-in-Residence (SIR) Program for Grades K-12

Scientist-in-Residence (SIR) brings NRWA’s professional educators to your school to lead a series of lessons or workshops, three to six times during the school year. The focus is science-based, hands-on learning that will engage students of all ages. Each program is designed to meet the needs of individual educators, administrations, and school districts, as well as meeting the requirements of Massachusetts and New Hampshire standards for science and technology.

NRWA currently provides SIR programs to seven schools in the watershed. The programs take place on the school sites or on conservation property near the schools. Curriculum focuses on science topics that teachers need to address. Some lessons are taught in the classroom, such as Wildlife Adaptations or the Water Cycle, and some lessons are taught outdoors, such as Tree Circumference, Plant Adaptation, and Maple Sugaring. The NRWA also coordinates a Service Learning project at the end of the school year. Below are current topics for SIR lessons, but please keep in mind that NRWA has the flexibility and knowledge to design new lessons to meet the needs of your specific curricula, school, and district. Some schools choose to combine SIR with our River Classroom, canoe-based field trip.

SIR programs in many of our schools are funded by grant sources. If your school needs funding assistance, the NRWA may be able to work with your school or district to find financial support through grants and other funding sources.

If you are interested in bringing the NRWA SIR program to your school, and you would like to discuss funding options, or for more information about SIR, please contact Stacey Chilcoat, NRWA River Classroom Director, at (978) 448-0299, or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

List of Current SIR Topics

I/O: indoor and/or outdoor
I: indoor only
O: outdoors only

All Seasons

• Enviroscape (run-off pollution model where students create solutions) I/O
• Wildlife Adaptations: (inherited vs. non-inherited characteristics) I/O
• Wildlife Adaptations: (instinctive vs. learned behaviors) I/O
• Plant Adaptations (environmental effects, seasonal changes) I/O
• Water Cycle Experiment I
• Soil Lab: (properties and retention) I/O
• Moon Phases and Earth Movement I
• Mapping the Schoolyard: contour maps and 3-d model building I/O
• Math Studies: calculating diversity and graphing tree or insect species I/O
• Environmental Games such as Project WILD “Oh Deer”, Project PLT “Every Tree for Itself” or Project WET “Journey of a Raindrop” I/O
• Stone Wall Investigations O
• Math in the Field (measuring in the schoolyard) I/O
• The Scientific Process: developing your own hypothesis and testing it in the school yard I/O
• Tree Survey of the School yard O
• Engineering in Nature: nature designs and man-made inventions I/O
• Bones Investigations (wildlife) I
• Birds of the Schoolyard
• Signs of Animals: tracking, homes, etc.

Fall, Spring, and Summer

• Water Erosion and Prevention I/O
• Plant Diversity in the Schoolyard (for schools with lawn habitats) O
• Forest, Field or Aquatic Ecosystems: plants, insects or small animal survey O
• Forest, Field or Aquatic Ecosystems: how organisms interact and function in that ecosystem. O
• Producers, Consumers and Decomposers in a Forest I/O
• Producers, Consumers and Decomposers in an Aquatic Ecosystem I/O
• Macro-invertebrate Study (aquatic insects/life cycles) I/O
• Watershed Survey of Neighborhood O
• Shoreline Survey (need a stream or river) O
• Chemistry Testing of Lake of Pond O
• Flow Studies in Stream or River: calculating velocity O
• Invasive Plants: Identification and Competition I/O
• Seeds: How do they Travel? O
• Ant Baiting and Tracking in the School-yard O
• Insect Survey of the School-yard O
• Plot Studies: using square meter plots to graph species O
• Vernal Pool Investigations (spring only I/O)

Winter Only

• Maple Sugaring/ Photosynthesis/ Plant Structures I/O
• Animals In Winter I/O