SC Project WET

Water Education for Teachers

Summer 2024 Announcements

By

Updates and Introductions:

Hi everyone! Abbi Greer of Greenville County Soil and Water Conservation District here. I wanted to hop on here and share some updates about SC Project WET and Project WET USA.

First and foremost, I am saddened to share with our network that Lynn Pilewski, SC Project WET State Coordinator, passed away in mid-May of this year. We here at Greenville County Soil and Water Conservation District as well as the Project WET State Coordinator network are deeply saddened by this loss. We’re thankful for your patience and support during this time.

I have accepted the position of SC Project WET State Coordinator and hope to meet everyone in the facilitator network that Lynn worked so hard to build. As I familiarize myself with our network, I am also working to get the word out about some new Project WET USA updates!

The Project WET 2.0 guide is being replaced by a newer, pared down guide called Foundations of Water Education. For those who are certified to teach or facilitate using WET 1.0 or 2.0, have no fear! This guide contains the same activities as WET 2.0 with some cool updates such as career connections and callouts focusing on justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. These guides are available to facilitators for $20 each. If you are interested in more information on these guides, stay tuned for a Zoom meeting date where I’ll share in-depth updates about the guide and Project WET USA website updates as well!

Don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly if you have questions about these changes! Looking forward to connecting with you all soon,

Abbi Greer

ProjectWET® in South Carolina

By

Welcome to the home of ProjectWET® in South Carolina! As we grow, we’ll be adding workshops to our calendar and a list of facilitators throughout the state.

Project WET’s mission is to reach children, parents, teachers and community members of the world with water education that promotes awareness of water and empowers community action to solve complex water issues.

Big Updates – Fall 2023

By

I hope everyone is doing well. I just got back from the annual USA Coordinators Conference in Cleveland and have some major changes to the Project WET program to tell you about.

Biggest news:

Project WET Guide 2.0 has been discontinued and is no longer available.

It is being replaced by 4 smaller, topical guides that will be rolling out beginning at the end of 2023.

  • Foundations in Water Literacy. 12 of the most used activities. Due end of 2023
  • Water & Earth Ecosystems. 22 activities. Due in 2024
  • Ecosystems & Human Health (Water is Life). 23 activities. Due in 2024
  • Management & Culture (Nature vs Nurture), 22 activities. Due in 2024 or 2025.

These guides will run about $20 each. Project WET is looking toward educators looking at topic based professional development courses and that’s what brought on this change.

Move to The WELL

  • The current WETconnect online digital platform is transforming into The WELL (Water Education Learning Library)
  • The minimum subscription to get access to the learning library is $40/year. A guide and online training is included in the $100/year subscription.
  • This is a huge change! Note you will not have to purchase a subscription to take an in-person training or access the educator portal once the new guides are out. 

What does this mean for you? A few things…

  • Workshops will have to be scheduled for 2024, after the new Fundamentals guides come out. 
  • The website Portal for Guide 2.0 will remain in place and isn’t getting removed. So, if you have your 2.0 guide with your access code (inside front cover), you’ll still have access to all of the resources and the printable pdf student copy pages that live there.

Triple Facilitator Workshop

By

Join Projects WET, WILD, and PLT for a triple facilitator training!

This workshop is for educators interested in becoming facilitators for Projects WET, WILD, and Learning Tree. Project facilitators host educator workshops at their schools, organizations, or other groups. To quality for this facilitator training, you must be a certified educator in at least ONE of the projects.

The workshop is July 19-20, 2023 at the Joe R. Adair Outdoor Education Center (110 Scout Creek Court, Laurens SC). Participants must be registered to attend and must attend the entire workshop to become certified (no partial certification).

Online Training Available

By

Online training is now available for educators interested in the Project WET curriculum. If you’re a formal educator, an informal educator, or a parent who’d like to use the award winning curriculum with your children, this is for you.

This training will take the place of the usual 6 hour workshop required to use the WET Guide and Activities. This is a self-paced online training, so you can do it whenever you have time. You’ll only pay for the guide and shipping to you which costs $40. If you are in Greenville County, we have funds to provide the guide at no cost, so the training will be free for you.

The link to the training is http://online-training.projectwet.org/guide-training/ 

At some point it should ask you for an access code. You should use 212P25 in order to link your course to your South Carolina state coordinator.

We’ll work together when applicable since you obviously won’t be using these activities in your classroom right now. I’ve had folks do an activity for family and send a video or just review activities and come up with a lesson plan. We can be flexible!