Documenting the Human Dimensions of Rivers Through Photography

<p><span lang="EN" style="font-size:11.0pt"><span style="line-height:115%"><span arial="" style="font-family:">The overarching goal of this lesson is for students to understand the complexity of river ecosystems and identify specific examples of human caused alteration in the field. In this multi-day lesson, students first become familiar with river terminology, features, and function. They then read about and discuss how human activities such as urbanization can impact river ecosystems by altering geomorphology and/or hydrology. The lesson also includes discussions on the many values and services rivers provide to local communities through investigating historic photographs and maps of the river over time. During the experiential part of this lesson, students work in small teams to apply field-based knowledge at a river field site. Students engage in a river “scavenger hunt,” conducting field observations and taking pictures that show evidence of human-caused impacts such as erosion, pollution, or channelization. During the “hunt,” students are given a list of terms to identify/photograph and are asked to explain/hypothesize how they think each example affects the river. When students return to the classroom, the teams create a presentation of their findings based on the photos they took in the field. Each team shares their presentation with the entire class, explaining the human impacts they documented and how they think such phenomena impacts the river. On the final slide, each team researches and shares a possible solution/mitigation strategy they would recommend to a local river. </span></span></span></p>