NORTH CAROLINA’S SECTION 319 NPS PROGRAM
Final Report
October 2008

Project Title:  EXPANDING THE BENEFITS OF “IT’S OUR WATER”

DWQ Contract Number #EW06029
Contract Period:  September 30, 2008
Project Manager:  Anne Taylor
Reporting Period:   Final

Project Outputs and Deliverables:

1. As many as ten states will be introduced to “It's Our Water” and the management and funding infrastructure to sustain it.  These contacts will be responsible for adapting “It's Our Water" to their own state's unique water resources and training teachers over a period of years to a growing number of teachers. 
2. “It's Our Water” materials will be made available to educators and organizations. 
3. Additional copies of the Teacher's Guide and the DVDs will be printed as needed. 

Background:  In 2005 the Environmental Education Fund premiered “It’s Our Water” an Earth/Environmental Science five week curriculum at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.  The three year development of this curriculum and five videos featuring North Carolina high school students investigating their own communities’ water resources was funded significantly by the DENR Division of Water Quality 319 NPS program.

That program met with more demand than anticipated and more than 300 of the approximately 700 North Carolina Earth/Environmental Science teachers in the state have participated in the ten hour professional development workshops.  These educators have reported that they reach over 18,000 high school students each year.  The program will continue indefinitely dependent only upon maintaining the necessary funding to which the Environmental Education Fund is deeply committed.

National Exposure:  As the “It’s Our Water” principals, specifically the state coordinator, Shelby Gull Laird, and a Wake County high school teacher Mark Townley, presented “It’s Our Water” at national conferences, other states’ interest was so strong that North Carolina looked seriously into meeting a growing demand for the curriculum to be available nationwide.

Therefore, with support from the North Carolina Division of Water Quality through a $53,000 grant under the Section 319 Nonpoint Source Pollution (NPS) Program, the Environmental Education Fund began a three year process of determining how North Carolina’s “It’s Our Water” curriculum could best be adapted to other states’ myriad educational requirements and vastly diverse water resources.

Trademark:  One of the first actions taken and accomplished 10.17.2007 was to secure a certificate of registration through the US Patent and Trademark Office. All of “It’s Our Water” is also copyrighted.

NAAEE Resource Review:  Another step important to any proposed national program was to have the North American Association of Environmental Educators (NAAEE)  conduct a thorough review and analysis with recommendations to adapt and improve “It’s Our Water” as an environmental education resource for all states to consider.   Those recommendations have been incorporated into the national “It’s Our Water” framework.

It’s Our Water National Liaison:  Initially the Environmental Education Fund focused on a contractor responsible for identifying possible “It’s Our Water” funding sources in other states.  North Carolina’s program development cost over $260,000 to bring to fruition. While considerably less costly to other states with all of the development work available as a structure and model, establishing a “home” for the program, adapting the teaching activities and the cost of developing the state specific videos, requires a significant investment from each state.

Once interest was established, however, it became clear that professional development for state coordinators and teachers in other states was important in order to field test guidance to states for adaptation.  For that purpose the North Carolina “It’s Our Water” coordinator has worked with other states one on one and through surveys to develop guidance material, professional development workshops and ease of access to “It’s Our Water” material, templates, and resources to guide them through the adaptation process.    

Contacting other states and establishing contacts:  Over 36 state contacts have been established and each has expressed interest in adapting “It’s Our Water” to their respective state’s needs.  Coca Cola and World Wildlife Fund have contributed funding to conduct workshops in Tennessee and Alabama.  Adaptation workshops have been held in Virginia and as a result of that experience an adaptation survey was developed and tested by two additional states.  The West Virginia response is attached.

Possible funding sources, in addition to those that supported North Carolina’s program, have been identified as resources for other states to more fully develop their programs.  “It’s Our Water” promotional materials have been provided to government, business and industry funding prospects to further their interest in supporting “It’s Our Water” in their states. 

The plan to sustain “It’s Our Water” in other states:   As expected, the experience of working with other states has spawned many innovative ideas for building and sustaining the infrastructure necessary to support a national program

Many of these ideas are possible future grant programs.  However, under this 319 NPS Grant Program the following steps have been accomplished:

Revised Curriculum
The North Carolina’s It’s Our Water” curriculum was revised to serve as a user-friendly, generic resource adaptable for all states. Through the “It’s Our Water” website, state coordinators are provided access to documents that they can use as a framework to build their own state-specific “It’s Our Water” curriculum.  These document files include the basic “It’s Our Water” teacher guide containing curriculum content applicable to all states, an editable document with guidelines on how to create and adapt state-specific curriculum content, and a folder with templates and graphic elements that states can use as they create the state-specific portions of the teacher guide.

Website
An “It’s Our Water” website was developed to provide an entry point for state developers to learn about “It’s Our Water” and to access the revised curriculum documents. 

Video
To assist other states in understanding the benefits of adapting “It’s Our Water” to their state’s educational curriculum, a promotional/educational video describing the product is on the website as well.

Mailers:  A series of post cards have been prepared to draw state contacts to the web site to engage them in the adaptation process for their state and sustain the development of their own state’s “It’s Our Water.”

In conclusion:  Future follow up with other states is on our minds since the interest is great and the foundation for other states to adapt “It’s Our Water” is now in place.  Priority will be given to those states where worsening economic conditions and natural disasters forced the cancellation of scheduled workshops and meetings.   Budget constraints in states planning “It’s Our Water” meetings, specifically the Chesapeake Bay Education Workgroup, South Carolina and Florida, postponed scheduled meetings.  Hurricane damage affected work in both Texas and Louisiana.

Overall, the program more than achieved its goals, came in on budget, and exceeded in kind match by more than $10,000.00 not including approximately $12,000.00 in office equipment, data processing equipment, reference materials, software and other office essentials used during the three years of this program. 

Beyond those measures, the validation of the great value of “It’s Our Water” has been especially rewarding to North Carolina program principals.  The 319 program in the DENR Division of Water Quality has made possible to all states in the nation an excellent and meaningful educational program.