Providence School Teachers & Students Showcase Marine Science and Environmental Education Partnership With Save The Bay

PROVIDENCE, RI – On Monday, February 1, from 5-7 p.m., Save The Bay will host the final Teachers in Action Showcase in its three-year partnership with Providence Public Schools. The showcase is a science-fair style exhibition, put together by 20 teachers and their students, demonstrating how their classrooms have applied marine science and environmental education they received with Save The Bay’s Project Narragansett Program throughout the year. Featured teacher-speaker Teresa Sangermano, of Smithfield and a fourth-grade teacher at F.D. Spaziano Elementary School, will kick off the event, to be held at Save The Bay’s Bay Center, 100 Save The Bay Drive in Providence.

Funded by a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Bay Watershed Education Training program, Project Narragansett Providence Schools Edition has been a three-year partnership with Providence Public Schools. Each year, teachers from Providence Public Schools participate with Save The Bay educators in four days of Bay-based professional development that ties directly into the Next Generation Science Standards and expectations for classroom teaching. Then during the academic year, the teachers bring their students to Save The Bay for marine science programming, including boat-based experiences aboard one of Save The Bay’s education vessels and two land-based units focused on such topics as climate interpretation, watershed education, live animal encounters, water quality and habitat.

The Teachers In Action Showcase is the opportunity for teachers and students to show parents and other community members what they have learned and how they have applied it in the classroom. Participating schools are Lillian Feinstein, Fogarty, Veazie, Pleasant View, William D’Abate, George J. West, Carl Lauro, Vartan Gregorian, Spaziano, and Young-Woods elementary schools, as well as Nathaniel Green Middle School and Mt. Pleasant High School.

Last year, exhibits made and presented by schoolchildren included a working watershed model that shows how runoff collects pollutants along the way to our waterways, a presentation comparing the trash created from individual versus bulk food packaging, and a display of artwork and storytelling centered around marine science and environmental education.

Save The Bay has been running Project Narragansett since 2002, in partnership with school districts throughout R.I. and Mass.  It has been so successful and well-received by Providence Public Schools that the district has applied for funding to continue the program with Save The Bay beyond the current three-year partnership. Save The Bay has begun a similar program with Warwick Public Schools.

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