Casco Bay Curriculum

Friends of Casco Bay developed the “place-based” Casco Bay Curriculum to help 4th through 6th grade teachers incorporate locally-focused environmental education into their classrooms. Our goal is to instill an ethic of stewardship in our youth, by helping them understand the immediate marine world around them through the use of hands-on science, inquiry activities, and actual data.

Most children will not be able to travel to rain forests or to the Arctic, but our communities’ students can experience Casco Bay first-hand. We seek to promote understanding about issues facing our community, demonstrate why these issues are important, and offer ideas on how they can be resolved.

The objectives of the Casco Bay Curriculum are to:
 Provide teachers with current information about the health of Casco Bay;
 Inform students about citizen actions that can protect the environment;
 Foster a sense of stewardship for the Bay, the watershed and the environment; and,
 Demonstrate how environmental issues facing our communities can be resolved.

“The Casco Bay Curriculum has been one of the best – if not the best – units we’ve used. The units expand upon our existing school curriculum, and the hands-on activities are very engaging for all types of learners.”

-Diane D. Boas, Director, 21st Century Community Learning Program, South Portland

Interested in Using the Curriculum in Your Classroom?

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The Casco Bay Curriculum

has been generously supported by:
 Aristotle Fund of the

Maine Community Foundation
 Bank of America Foundation
 Captain Planet Foundation
 Cole Haan
 Cumberland County Soil & Water Conservation District
 Edward H. Daveis Benevolent Fund
 Horizon Foundation
 Margaret E. Burnham Charitable Trust
 Morton-Kelly Charitable Trust
 National Semiconductor
 Portland Pipe Line
 Simmons Foundation
 Unum
 and the Members of Friends of Casco Bay

Help Fund the Curriculum

Your donation will help educate Maine's future leaders about environmental stewardship. Just write "Curriculum" in the designation box once you get to the billing page. Thank you!

What’s in the Curriculum?
The Casco Bay Curriculum includes 37 activities based on Friends of Casco Bay's scientific data, along with worksheets and illustrations. The Curriculum exemplifies a data-driven, placed-based approach to environmental education.

For detailed information on the Curriculum's four modules, please contact Mary Cerullo.

Curriculum Highlights
Our efforts to promote the Curriculum are garnering interest in our unique and data-driven activities. We are delighted to report that this year, all of South Portland’s 5th grade teachers are incorporating the Casco Bay Curriculum into their self-designed marine science curriculum.

Another highlight for us is that the Curriculum was featured at the National Marine Educators Association’s conference, “Downeast 2007: Ideas, Innovations, and Inspiration.” This event reached 408 classroom teachers and informal educators from around the country and as far away as Japan and Australia. This year, the Curriculum was selected after a highly competitive process to be featured at the Maine Environmental Education Association conference “Education and the Environment – Building Our Common Future.”