Educator Resources & Community

Welcome to the educator community and resource hub from Lake Champlain Maritime Museum! Our goal with this community is to give educators throughout the Lake Champlain Watershed a place where they can easily find high-quality, free content from non-profit organizations, federal agencies, schools, and other educators. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter and bookmark this page to access all resources and past newsletters.

Browse Resources & Past Newsletters

October 2024

• Read the October Newsletter
• Lake Champlain Basin Program’s Interactive Atlas: Lake Champlain Basin Program’s Interactive Atlas allows you to place provided data sets onto a detailed map of the Lake Champlain Drainage Basin. 
• National Geographic’s MapMaker: National Geographic’s MapMaker allows you to view and customize maps of any global location by adding drawings and layers of information to your maps and saving your creations for future use.
• Google’s My Maps: This tool from Google allows you to create your own maps using whatever data you choose to input and Google Earth. The information page linked below showcases several potential uses and lesson plans to incorporate into your classroom, but the sky is the limit when it comes to potential uses for this tool.

September 2024

• Read the September Newsletter
• NOAA’s Back to School Bundle: This collection of resources from NOAA includes lesson plans for grade K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12, each with several sections including ways to engage your students, explore and visualize, visualize data, and background information for educators.
• Lake Champlain Basin Program’s 2024 State of the Lake: Published every three years, LCBP’s State of the Lake Report compiles a variety of types of data to evaluate the health of Lake Champlain and its watershed. It’s a great way to get students looking at place-based scientific data!
  • Lesson Plans for Grades 4-6
  • Lesson Plans for Grades 6 and up

August 2024

• Read the August Newsletter
• Virtual Field Labs: This resource contains several science-based virtual field trips that are focused on climate science, blending math and science, making them a great resource in planning an interdisciplinary unit.
• Youth for the Planet Action Resource Kit: This resource from WWF and WeAreTeachers has several lesson plans, activities, and tools that you can use to teach 7th-10th graders about climate change. It even has a Kahoot! that you can use to test your students’ knowledge.

July 2024

• Read the July Newsletter
• NOAA’s MWEE Course & Guide: The first of a two part series, this course is intended to help prepare teachers to facilitate MWEEs or Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences. If you’re not interested in taking the course but still want to learn about MWEE’s, then check out the Educator’s Guide!
• Watershed Lesson Plan: The National Park Service has a great collection of lesson plans that were created by staff from national parks around the country, which you can use to give your students some great new insight into the importance of watersheds.
  • Explore Your Watershed: For Grades 3-5
  • What is a Watershed? For Grades 6-8
  • Watershed Lessons: For Grades 6-8

June 2024

• Read the June Newsletter
• Wave of Plastic: This five lesson unit was created by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and is designed for middle school students. The resource also comes with an in-depth Teacher-Facilitator Guide that gives a nice overview of the entire unit.
• Environmental Service-Learning: This document, produced by the EPA, contains a collection of ideas for environmentally-focused service-learning projects and “project spotlights” that showcase projects done at schools around the country.
• Pack a Waste Free Lunch! This EPA resource is geared toward decreasing the amount of waste the that is generated by school lunches.

May 2024

• Read the May 2024 Newsletter
• Green Schoolyards America: This resource from Green Schoolyards America is a great tool to use as you look for ways to get your students outside and has three different free digital books with lesson plans and ideas to get your students outside and learning right on your school grounds.
• Watershed Explorer Challenge: This booklet encourages students to explore the Lake Champlain Watershed and learn more about different aspects of its ecology and geology. Includes FREE printed copies for all of your students at a variety of locations around the state-including the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum-or you can use the digital copy on the website.

April 2024

• Read the April 2024 Newsletter
• Our Scrumptious Lake Lesson Plans: These lesson plans go along with Our Scrumptious Lake PHYTOTASTIC!, a humorous science-themed graphic novel presenting complex science that is engaging and relatable. Check out more from the author, Sandy Murphy M.Ed., on her website.
• Understanding Plankton Lesson Plans: These lesson plans help prepare students for an activity in which they use a net to catch plankton then look at them under a microscope. Grades 4-6 here. Grades 6-8 here, which uses a National Geographic write-up on plankton.

March 2024

• Read the March 2024 Newsletter
• Our Scrumptious Lake PHYTOTASTIC! A humorous science-themed graphic novel presents complex science that is engaging and relatable.
• How Can Something So Tiny Have Such a Huge Impact: A lesson plan to accompany the graphic novel featured above and were actually created by the author Sandy Murphy M.Ed. Also comes with an Interdisciplinary Learning Resource.

February 2024

• Read the February 2024 Newsletter
• Clean Water Act Digital Exhibit: Celebrate World Water Day with your class by taking a tour of this digital exhibit, including a scavenger hunt.
• Fred the Fish: Fred the Fish is an activity that is especially helping younger students understand the impact of pollution and the importance of clean water, created by Eco-Schools, USA.
• These 7 Women are Working to Make Water Cleaner and Safer: An article from the Story Exchange published for World Water Day, including a worksheet.

January 2024

• Read the January 2024 Newsletter
• Interactive Map of Ice Age Waters: On this map you can see both the extent of the glacier as it receded between 14,000 and 10,000 years before the present.
• Glacier Demonstration Lesson Plan: A lesson plan to explain glaciers that can be adapted to suit multiple grade levels from Everest Education Expedition Curriculum.

December 2023

• Read the December 2023 Newsletter
• Scat and Track Series: Vermont Fish and Wildlife’s series for kids in kindergarten to 8th grade to get outside and explore during the winter.
• Animal Tracks Lesson Plan: A lesson plan focused on teaching elementary students about animal tracks from New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation.
• Footprints in the Snow Read Aloud: By Cynthia Benjamin to go with the Animal Tracks Lesson Plan
• Images for an Indoor “Field Trip”: An indoor option for students to find tracks around the classroom.
• Animal Tracks Pocket Guide: A guide from Vermont Fish and Wildlife.

November 2023

• Read the November 2023 Newsletter
• Climate Kids: A great online space with tools, lessons, and games to teach elementary and intermediate students about climate change.
• Graphing Temperature Models Lesson Plan: A lesson plan from ClimateScience.org focuses on teaching students about graphs and how to read and use a graph.

October 2023

• Read the October 2023 Newsletter
• Meet the Scientist: A video series by Lake Champlain Basin Program spotlighting some of the scientists in our region who are working to better understand the water quality, ecology, and history of Lake Champlain and its watershed.
• Vermont Fish and Wildlife Fish Culture Station Video: A video with Bret Ladago, a fisheries biologist, as he explains what fish culture stations are and their importance.
• Tour of Salisbury Fish Hatchery: A guided video tour of the Salisbury Fish Culture Station, which shows all of the different parts of the station in addition to explaining some background information about it
• Fish Culture Station Worksheet: A worksheet to go along with the two above videos that will push students to think like a scientist and fill out a research permit application.

September 2023

• Read the September 2023 Newsletter
• Watershed Sleuth Challenge: A student-driven mini unit focused on learning about watersheds
• WikiWatershed Runoff Simulation: Using this tool, you can adjust the landcover, soil type, and the amount of rainfall to see how much of the water evaporates, infiltrates, and runs off
• Worksheet for Runoff Simulation

August 2023

• Read the August 2023 Newsletter
• River Runner: An interactive map that lets users follow the path of a raindrop to the ocean
• EPA How’s My Waterway: Explore water quality by zip code or body of water
• Lesson Plan for How’s My Waterway

Become a Contributor

Are you interested in contributing lesson plans or materials to this newsletter to share with other educators? Lake Champlain Maritime Museum will pay educators $200 to share a lesson plan or piece of material (such as a worksheet, graphic organizer, etc.) with a write up describing how teachers can use it. If you’re interested in contributing, use the link below to fill out a brief interest form.

Want to Connect?

We’d like to create a space for educators in this community to connect – tell us what your preference is! Submit your vote via the poll below.