caring for our watershed

What is it?

Caring for Our Watersheds is “an education program that engages students in preserving and improving their local watersheds through student-led solutions.” Every year, students get the opportunity to fill out a proposal about what they would do if given the resources to change their watershed and environment for the better. Our project was selected as one of the top 10 finalists and we were given the resources to implement it and compete against other student projects. Our team placed 5th out of 266 teams, winning a total of $1400 for our school.

For our Caring for Our Watershed project, my team and I decided to create a fun and educational children’s book called Caring for Our Cougars, which would inspire healthy habits and lasting change. 

The city of Fort Collins rated the Cache la Poudre watershed a grace C in its watershed report card, which essentially means that while our watershed is functional, we need active management in order to maintain long-term viability. Basically, this means that our watershed needs constant and intentional care. In order to address this problem, my team and I decided to focus on two sustainable goals: quality education and sustainable cities and communities. By focusing on providing quality education, we can then create resilient change that will be carried on for generations.

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Our Project

  • Innovation

    Our book is called Caring for Our Cougars and it’s a workbook that we wrote, designed, and even published. Our book centers around the 4 letters of RAWR; R- responsibility, A- awareness, W- wise, and the last R- recycling. Each letter has an explanation as to what it is and 3 challenges. We involved Faith Welsh, another high school student, to create beautiful illustrations for us, and Milana Rowe, another student, to take pictures for us. In the book we follow Crosby the Cougar as he shows a little girl Amelia, what a watershed is and how she can help take care of it. In the beginning of our book, we also include a note to parents and teachers to keep kids accountable and, if they want, encourage friendly competition as competition makes everything better.

  • Implementation

    We decided to do our project with the 4th grade class, about 87 kids, and our high school class. After a quick overview explaining what a watershed is and what our project is, we split into groups of 4-5. In these groups, kids were able to read the book, ask any questions they might’ve had, and work on a worksheet centered around what a watershed is. After kids read the book and were ready to move on, they played a game of charades with their high schooler where kids acted out the answers of three questions: what lives in a watershed, what makes up a watershed, and how can we protect it? On implementation day, we were even able to involve our book and school mascot Crosby the Cougar and the kids were ecstatic.

  • Impact

    Our project was so impactful because it focused on making something that kids usually see as a chore fun. Our project allows kids to find ways to practically help their community while enjoying it. Our book help kids learn easy habits that they can carry to adulthood, and, in turn, teach their kids. While we did provide custom-made stickers for the 4th graders, anyone can use any kind of sticker (or none at all) to effectively learn and use our book. Furthermore, it is available for purchase on Lulu.com website and we make no additional income from it.