Education/Outreach
Goals and Objectives
One of the main goals/objectives of the Niantic River Watershed Protection Plan (NRWPP) is to raise stakeholder awareness and involvement by implementing a watershed management information and education campaign. This involves implementing education and outreach programs that include:
- Increasing stakeholder awareness about the link between shellfish bed closures and sources of bacterial pollution in the Niantic River.
- Increasing stakeholders’ level of knowledge about nutrient loading and the health of the Niantic River Estuary.
- Educating land use decision makers about the value of vegetated riparian buffers in the protection of water quality.
- Establishing an outreach and tracking program for landowners about on-site septic system maintenance.
- Partnering with other local groups to develop and implement a comprehensive education and outreach program addressing water quality and watershed management issues.
- Developing targeted outreach activities and materials (click here for this list).
Outreach
The Education/Outreach Subcommittee has been working on several ways to get information out to the public by creating a PowerPoint presentation that can be used at workshops, lectures, or conferences that we develop/attend. We also designed a Niantic River Brochure to quickly inform people about our organization and what a difference they can make.
The Education/Outreach Subcommittee (part of the Niantic River Watershed Advisory Committee) has begun work on all recommendations set out by the NRWPP. The following is a list of the Education/Outreach done within the watershed since 2008.
Education
In order to evaluate how our young students are learning about the environment around them, we developed a questionnaire for teachers (K-12) to fill out. We have used their submissions to understand where schools need help with their environmental curriculum and what we can do to assist them.