The project uses the watershed as a means to instill an interest in the preservation and conservation of freshwater resources and encourage environmental stewardship in non-major and pre-major undergraduate students. The project empowers students with the tools, knowledge and motivation to become citizen-scientists. An interdisciplinary approach is used that integrates the natural and social science of watersheds to develop a curriculum that is both rigorous and accessible to students across a wide range of majors and disciplines. Tandem courses in Watershed Ecology and Watershed Citizenship are developed that integrate service learning and undergraduate research in the local watershed. Specifically, the project uses DNA barcoding of aquatic macroinvertebrates and incorporates a cyber community-building tool, WikiWatershedTM, to integrate students into the larger watershed community. The focus on watershed science and social science assures relevance of this material in any location. This project produces easily replicable and transferable curricular material for broader implementation that can be modified to adapt to any watershed address.
