By: Mona Dominguez and Emily Ward
The Master Environmental Education Program (MEE) is an outreach program of the Baldwin County Extension Office. This group of MEE Educators work as 4-H Resource Volunteers, a 4-H Agent, and a 4-H Agent Assistant in Baldwin County Schools and the Baldwin County Extension Office.
Ashley Campbell, Baldwin County Environmental Manager and Amy Newbold with the EPA Gulf of Mexico Office, proposed an Alabama Water Watch lesson to the MEE facilitators who approved the addition. AWW drafted an interactive and educational lesson to convey the importance of water monitoring and how even students can become citizen scientists. AWW, Campbell, and Newbold trained the first sets of volunteer educators who taught the AWW lesson to students for the first time during the 2018-2019 school year. With help of Extension Staff, including Sarah Butterworth, Baldwin County 4-H Youth Development Coordinator, it has been part of the repertoire ever since.
Sarah Butterworth trains a new group of MEE Volunteers to teach the AWW Lesson. Photo credit: Cathy Banning
The program trains volunteers to teach nine lessons in schools and community groups about some of the area’s most critical environmental issues. Each lesson includes an outline, activity, glossary, background information, and correlations to the Alabama Course of Study for Science.
AWW Staff interviewed Cathy Banning, Administrative Associate, with the Baldwin County Office, who provided some information about the program and its impact on the community. Read on for more details!
Could you please tell us a little bit about how you share 4-H AWW with kids?
Volunteer speakers travel throughout Baldwin County to public and private schools to present the Alabama Water Watch lesson to 6th-12th grade students. Students are introduced to the Alabama Water Watch citizen volunteer water quality program. They learn how to make visual observations about water quality and how to test physical and chemical characteristics of water to determine pollution sources and long-term trends in water quality.
Why do you choose to include 4-H AWW in your program?
The watersheds within Baldwin County are rich in natural resources. Sometimes known as America’s Amazon, the Mobile River Basin, located on the eastern shore of Baldwin County and draining a large part of Alabama, is home to more species of freshwater fish, mussels, snails, turtles, and crawfish than any other state.
Baldwin County is a unique part of Alabama adjacent to the Gulf of Mexico and host to millions of tourists each year. It continues to increase in population with Foley, Fairhope, Gulf Shores, and Spanish Fort being the fastest-growing cities. Population growth brings increased pressure on the environment: many new homes are built; septic systems are installed; more water is used; and more waste is thrown out. All these activities affect our watershed.
The Master Environmental Education Program plays an important role in instilling knowledge of natural resources that will help our environment become sustainable for years to come.
Cathy shared that the program offered over 20 AWW Lessons during the 2023-2024 school year, and that 79% of participants reported that they would share information about Alabama Water Watch with friends and family.
To Cathy and all of the volunteers with the MEE Program, thank you for all of your hard work and dedication to educating your community about watershed stewardship through Alabama Water Watch!
You can learn more about the program, and Baldwin County educators can request a Lesson through the Baldwin County Master Environmental Educators page.
