About Project WET

Project Water Education for Teachers (WET) is an environmental education program designed by teachers for teachers and all educators working with children from kindergarten through grade 12.

Project WET is a resource of interdisciplinary instructional activities, along with workshops and in-service programs for teachers, natural resource professionals, park and nature center staff, and youth group leaders.

Project WET works for any urban to rural settings where there is a stream, lake, or pond.

Project WET is an action-oriented educational tool to enable everyone to understand and value water and encourage water stewardship in the next generation.

Program offerings

Project WET workshops are intended for K-12 teachers and environmental educators. Our mission is to help teachers implement environmental education/water topics into their existing curriculum and to help environmental educators implement activities into their programming.

Further professional development workshops (for educators who completed Project WET training) focus on classroom management, assessment strategies, integrating WET activities into existing curriculum and across subject areas, discussion groups on how to better use the activities within the classroom.

Main programs

Secondary programs

Goals

The goal of Project WET is to facilitate and promote awareness, appreciation, knowledge, and stewardship of water resources through the development and distribution of classroom-ready teaching aids and through the establishment of state and internationally sponsored Project WET programs.

Project WET believes:

• In helping students learn how to think, not what to think.
  Water moves through living and non-living systems and binds them together in a complex web of life.
• Water of sufficient quality and quantity is important for all water users (energy producers, farmers and ranchers, fish and wildlife, manufacturers, recreationalists, rural and urban dwellers).
  Sustainable water management is crucial for providing tomorrow’s children with social and economic stability in a healthy environment.
• Awareness of and respect for water resources can encourage a personal, lifelong commitment of responsibility and positive community participation.

In support of the stated goal, Project WET is guided by the following objectives:

• Research: To stay ahead of emerging state and national water education trends and standards, and to stay in touch with the educational needs of the public.
• Publications: To produce and publish creative and informative materials to meet the needs identified through research.
  Instruction and Training: To provide leadership training and instruction to ensure that materials and services are fully utilized, and to foster grass-roots participants in their capacities to educate others.
• Networking and Partnerships (The WELL): To form partnerships with organizations to enhance awareness, distribution, and use of materials and services.
  Evaluation: To improve the program through an aggressive, ongoing, and multifaceted evaluation program.
• Recognition: To seek ways to acknowledge and recognize people and organizations for their contributions to water education.

National history

From September 1992 through April 1993, over 300 educators, resource managers, and specialists from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. territories, and Canada participated in eight regional writing workshops. Guided by the Project WET activity format, participants produced more than 500 activities. In 2008, Project WET initiated work on Project WET 2.0 and the newly updated activity guide was ready in 2011. It contains brand new activities, along with the “best of the best” from our other WET publications. Written by teachers for teachers, the Project WET Curriculum & Activity Guide is “teacher friendly.” The activities cut across many disciplines in the study of water and water resources. Educators may easily organize activities into units of study or pick and choose their individual favorites.

Project WET is a nonprofit water education program located in Bozeman, Montana. The original WET program was established in 1984 by the North Dakota State Water Commission. In 1989, the director of Project WET was invited by Montana State University–with the funding from the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation–to duplicate the original North Dakota program in Montana, Idaho, and later, in Arizona. The success of this pilot multi-state initiative led to a decision to develop a national Project WET program.

In 1990, the Council for Environmental Education (formerly the Western Regional Environmental Education Council) became an official cosponsor, in partnership with The Watercourse, of Project WET. Currently, Project WET program is sponsored nationally by The Project WET Foundation.

Project WET is a volunteer program that works in conjunction with local school districts, state agencies, and natural resource organizations. State coordinators and advisory committees guide the development of the program and select and train workshop leaders.

History in Missouri

In 1995, Project WET came to Missouri when it gained support from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Joe Pitts from DNR was the first State Coordinator and played an important role in getting Missouri Project WET started, as well as building the program (Joe was a part of the team who wrote the first Project WET guide). Herb Turner, a teacher from Waynesville High School, field tested the activities from the WET guide and provided input before the final edition was sent to the press.

Missouri Project WET has seen growth in the number of facilitators and educators who use Project WET materials in their classrooms and across state parks, educational facilities, and programs since its 1990s’ adoption.

Currently, Missouri State University is the state sponsor for and hosts the state coordinator for Missouri Project WET. Several non-profit organizations who are involved in water stewardship in Southwest Missouri provided their support for Missouri Project WET, including Watershed Committee of the Ozarks and the James River Basin Partnership.

State Coordinator for Missouri -
Dr. Melanie Carden-Jessen

Dr. Melanie Carden-Jessen
Secondary Science Education Program Coordinator
Project WET, WILD, and PLT State Coordinator
School of Earth, Environment and Sustainability
Missouri State University
901 S. National, Blunt Hall 367
Springfield, Missouri 65897
MCardenJessen@MissouriState.edu
417-836-3231