Helping You Conserve Natural Resources For 35 Years...

Upper Republican Natural Resources District

Information & Education

Grants & Scholarships

Range Camp - The Upper Republican NRD provides scholarships to students who will attend the Nebraska Range Youth Camp held at Nebraska State 4-H Camp at Halsey, NE. The Range Camp provides hands-on experience with rangeland resources. Campers have the opportunity to learn about range plant identification, range sites and conditions, stocking rates as well as several other items of interest. Students should contact the NRD for more information.

Envirothon - The Upper Republican NRD helps sponsor Envirothon teams from the District who make it to the state competition. The Envirothon is a team competition that allows the students to take the tests as a team rather than each individual testing by themselves. The team can be students from a science, ag. education, or health class,4-H members and have to be 9th – 12th graders. The students are tested on their knowledge of forestry, range management, aquatics, wildlife, policy, soils and one subject that can change from year to year. At the state level, the team also has to present an oral presentation.

S.C.O.R.E. Camp Scholarships – The Upper Republican NRD sponsors scholarships for the 7th & 8th Grade Field Trip the year the camp is in session. Students must apply for the scholarship. Once the scholarship has been approved the student must write an essay to the NRD about what they learned on their trip before reimbursement will be made.

Classroom Presentations

“Big or Small, Plug ‘Em All” – The Upper Republican NRD has a demonstration that is suited for 3rd grade and up to help the students learn about the importance of decommissioning an abandoned well. This hands-on demonstration allows

the students to decommission or “plug” their own mini-well. Abandoned wells can be a direct pipeline for potential groundwater contamination. This demonstration is a great way to help show the significance of properly plugged wells.

“Edible Aquifers” - It’s just what the name implies; students get to build an aquifer, and then get to eat the snack. This hands-on demonstration helps students to learn about an aquifer and its different layers. Edible Aquifers are suited for 1st graders and up, even adults seem to learn from this fun edible demonstration.

Sandtank Groundwater Flow Model - The Upper Republican NRD has a sandtank groundwater flow model available for educators to borrow or the NRD personnel would be happy to bring the model into a classroom, field day or camp situation. This tabletop model

demonstrates how groundwater moves and how it affects wells, lakes and streams. This also shows how groundwater contamination can occur.

“Enviroscape” - This tabletop display helps to visually demonstrate how surface and groundwater contamination could occur by using common household products such as cocoa, powdered gelatin, and potato flakes. This model includes all areas that could be involved with groundwater contamination. This model is best used by smaller groups of 10 – 15 students but can be adapted for larger groups. This is another hands-on demonstration. The

Enviroscape can be loaned out to educators or NRD personnel can bring this into your classroom or day camp.

Project Food, Land and People – The Upper Republican NRD has personnel trained as a facilitator in the Project, Food, Land and People curriculum. This curriculum includes 55 hands-on lessons for Preschool through 12th grade. These lessons are all related to agriculture. Contact Heather Francis, URNRD Conservation & Information Specialist to find out more about this exciting set of lessons. Some of these lessons are readily available for classroom presentations about several different subjects, mostly dealing with natural resource issues. But Project Food, Land and People is about more than just Science, there are lessons for Language Arts, Social Studies, Consumer Science, Math and Health.

Check out these downloadable pages from URNRD’s activity book, “Know Nebraska’s Water.”

 

· Color-by-Number

 

· Dot-to-Dot

 

· Hive Maze

Ooey Gooey Garbage—June 2007

Edible Aquifers

Enviroscape—June 2007

If you are an educator and are interested in this set of lesson plans please contact Heather Francis at heatherfrancis@urnrd.org. In the future the NRD would like to sponsor a workshop for teachers to be able to receive this set of lesson plans. The lessons are also correlated to the current Nebraska teaching standards.