SD curriculum for Chaparral/Shrublands, seeking 4th grade teachers to pilot this fall!

Hello Teachers!  The San Diego Children and Nature Collaborative is excited about a new curriculum to bring chaparral and shrubland native habitat content into your existing classroom lessons! 

This curriculum, San Diego's Native Habitats: Shrublands Teacher's Guide:

• Offers outside-your-classroom activities that will bring the lesson to life
• Is written to 4th grade California Standards (literacy and science) but can be altered to meet other elementary grades
• Includes five comprehensive lessons that can be used individually or together
• Supplements or replaces current lessons, even food chain cards with local plants and animals, and adaptations to drought and wildfire
• Requires no or little cost to implement this FREE curriculum

SDCaN is currently seeking to pilot this innovative curriculum in the fall of 2010. 

Eligibility requirements:

• 4th grade teacher within San Diego County
• Able to implement ALL five lessons (between 5-10 hours) within the 2010-2011 school year
• Willingness to participate in evaluation of curriculum
• Especially interested in teachers who are able to implement and complete curriculum implementation by the end of December 2010

Interested in being a pilot classroom??  Contact Nancy Sunday at nsunday21@yahoo.com   phone #: 858-277-2110

Reviewed by the San Diego County Office of Education, the San Diego's Native Habitats: Shrublands Teacher's Guide is aligned with the California content standards in Science and English Language Arts. This curriculum was created by the San Diego Children and Nature Collaborative, a regional collaborative of organizations, individuals and companies with the mission to inspire communities to nurture, empower, and engage youth in cultivating their relationship with nature.   The objectives, alignments with standards and textbooks and key vocabulary are outlined on the second page of the attached invitation letter.   Incentive!  Teachers will receive a class set of fold-out field guide to "The Chaparral Shrublands of Southern California," with more than 120 plants and animals from chaparral habitats!  (from Waterford Press, copies donated by the City of San Diego, Open Space Division).

We look forward to working with 20 pilot teachers/classrooms and then distributing the curriculum (with picture species cards for food chain game!) to teachers in late spring, 2011.  And to a generation of students learning about San Diego's nature!  /s/ Anne Fege, Nancy Sunday, Crystal DeSoto, Adrienne Marriott, Nancy Taylor, Leta Bender, Lilian Cooper, Maureen Lewis, Nancy Renner, Rick Halsey, and others!

Anne S. Fege, Ph.D., M.B.A., Chair

San Diego Children and Nature Collaborative (SDCaN) Phone 858-472-1293, email fege@sandiegoaudubon.org