SFWA’s education programs provide opportunities for Santa Feans to experience the Santa Fe River and its watershed through school and public programs. Programs are designed to highlight a variety of ecosystems and explore human-environmental relationships.
My Water, My Watershed is an experiential, inquiry-based program for fifth grade Santa Fe Public School students to study and explore their watershed, learning about the complex relationships between living things and their environment. This program is been aligned with New Mexico STEM Ready! science standards to compliment classroom education.
Mi Arroyo, Mi Tierra was developed to support place-based outdoor education using local arroyos that are readily accessible to most schools. Each mini unit begins with a walk to observe different phenomena taking place in the arroyo. Through the lens of stormwater, students explore erosion, infiltration, and pollution while using hands-on activities that are aligned with 6th grade and middle school NM STEM Ready! Science Standards. Students will make connections between the history of the local arroyo system, how water moving through impacts the system, best management practices, and the role arroyos have played in local cultures over time.
Professional development for teachers can help improve knowledge, skills, and practices, ensuring teachers can support student learning. SFWA will be offering teacher workshops throughout the school year to equip teachers with new tools and instructional materials on topics such as water conservation, water monitoring, and connections to watershed management.
Rainwater Harvesting Curriculum
Students use the engineering design process to design rainwater harvesting systems that create green stormwater infrastructure allowing runoff to infiltrate into the soil, cool the space, and support native plants. Students take a watershed approach to study their school yard to determine the best placement and plan for their system. With the knowledge they acquire, they will understand clearly how to build resiliency when responding to local climate threats of increased temperatures, extreme storm events, and persistent drought.
Teaching students about measuring water quality and quantity is important to their understanding of the watershed. SFWA educators are available to go into classrooms or meet students at the river to explore what we are measuring and why we are measuring it. If you are a teacher and interested in student monitoring education, please reach out to us.
Upper Santa Fe Watershed Hikes
Closed to the public since 1932, the Upper Santa Fe Watershed has undergone a dramatic transformation during the last decade to protect our watershed and water supply. Using management tools such as mechanical thinning and prescribed burning, the City of Santa Fe and U.S. Forest Service along with the Santa Fe Watershed Association have been working over the last several years to restore the forest.
These tours are your opportunity to learn about the restoration efforts and catch a glimpse of this nearly pristine forest that supplies 45% of the City’s drinking water supply. During a 5 mile roundtrip hike through The Nature Conservancy’s Santa Fe Canyon Preserve and the Upper Santa Fe Watershed, experts from the Santa Fe Watershed Association, the City of Santa Fe, and U.S. Forest Service lead participants on a visit past Nichols Reservoir to Agua Sarca and covers topics such as the history of Santa Fe’s drinking water supply, how the reservoir systems work, forest thinning and healthy forest ecology, the role of beavers in our watershed, and other topics about the ecology of the Santa Fe Watershed.
The purpose of a NM Climate Masters course is to provide 30+ hours of in-class programming and field trip opportunities to participants over a 9 week time frame. The programming is designed to provide ideas of how we can reduce our carbon footprints through a variety of ways including transportation, energy conservation, waste, consumption, food, and water issues. Upon completion of the program, participants create and implement a 30 hour service project in the community. This project has two objectives for the participants: 1) Serve as a positive messenger of how we as individuals and a community can reduce our carbon footprint. 2) Incorporate the learned material into a small-scale, community service effort.
The Santa Fe Watershed Association works with local and national organizations to ensure that we are providing excellent standards based programming and experiences for learners of every age in Santa Fe.
Santa Fe Outdoor Education Collaborative (SFOEC)
The Santa Fe Outdoor Education Collaboration is a joint project between Audubon Southwest, the Santa Fe Botanical Garden, and the Santa Fe Watershed Association. These three organizations work together to provide high-quality, nature-based science lessons, outdoor field trips, and professional development trainings. All are rooted in standards-aligned life-science and the best practices of outdoor education.
