Educator Resources & Community
Welcome to the educator community and resource hub from Lake Champlain Maritime Museum! Our goal with this community is to give educators throughout the Lake Champlain Watershed a place where they can easily find high-quality, free content from non-profit organizations, federal agencies, schools, and other educators. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter and bookmark this page to access all resources and past newsletters.
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Browse Resources & Past Newsletters
February 2026
- Glaciers & the Champlain Watershed Curriculum: This curriculum was created by Lake Champlain Maritime Museum staff in 2009 and contains several lessons focused on glaciers, the history of Lake Champlain, and how all of this relates to human history and the tree and fish species in our region. Suited for K-8 but could be adapted to middle & high school students.
- Geological History of Champlain Valley Unit: We have some great examples of plate movement, interesting rocks, and cool fossils here in the Champlain Valley. The unit is designed for middle school students and is bolstered by OpenSciEd’s lessons on Plate Tectonics and Rock Cycling, and includes field trips and local resources.
January 2026
- Making Meaning Through Art: Created and shared by a teacher within our watershed, this lesson teaches middle school students about their water footprint—the total amount of water they use in daily life, both directly and indirectly.
- How to Teach Nature Journaling: Nature journaling is an amazing way to get your students to take time to observe and analyze natural spaces. This time spent working to understand what’s around them can increase their respect for the ecosystems they visit and the species that live in them, ensuring a future of environmental stewardship.
November 2025
- Stream Ecosystem Learning System: Middle school students will investigate biotic and abiotic factors, examine how these elements work together to support a healthy environment, and identify the roles organisms play in food chains and webs. Students will also learn about different parts of streams and rivers—such as riffles, runs, and pools—and how these areas support diverse life forms.
- A Drop of Water in Your Hand Activity: This lesson plan from NOAA, which is easily adapted for all age groups, illustrates the rarity of clean drinking water on Earth in order to increase stewardship of our waterways.
October 2025
- Read the October Newsletter
- Watershed Independent Learning Activity: In this independent, self-paced lesson, students will use Google Slides to learn about watersheds and water pollution. Through interactive activities and videos, they will explore how water moves through a watershed, identify sources of pollution, and understand their impact on water quality.
- Watershed in a Box Lesson: Intended for grades 2 and up, this lesson plan from NOAA walks your students through the process of creating their very own model watershed and “polluting” it to watch how pollution travels throughout the watershed via different bodies of water.
September 2025
- Read the September Newsletter
- Cardboard Regatta Challenge: This STEM activity, submitted by a teacher in our watershed, leads students through creating their own boat out of cardboard. It is designed for grades 6-8 and takes approximately two weeks for students to design and build their boats, then race them.
- Echo’s Engineer It! The landing page for the activities also includes a short video geared toward helping students understand the steps of the design process and the importance of thinking critically to come up with creative solutions to problems.
August 2025
- Read the August Newsletter
- Macroinvertebrates Materials: These materials from the Headwaters Science Institute are geared toward middle and high school students. The materials also include a lesson plan and worksheet that you can use in your classroom.
- Macroinvertebrates Key: The Stroud Water Research Center has an incredible number of resources focused on benthic macroinvertebrates, including rintable 3D macroinvertebrate models, experiments to learn more about macroinvertebrates, a simulator to determine stream health, and many high-quality photographs of benthic macroinvertebrate, and a macroinvertebrate dichotomous key.
July 2025
- Read the July Newsletter
- Fish Life Cycle Lesson: Geared toward grades 4-8, the teaching objectives of the lesson are for students to be able to name and diagram the stages of the fish life cycle as well as to describe and contrast fish reproductive strategies.
- Vermont Fish & Wildlife Traveling Programs:
- Let’s Go Fishing! The Let’s Go Fishing Program is run by volunteers and facilitated by Vermont Fish and Wildlife. It features a set curriculum in which students learn about aquatic ecosystems and you can even borrow equipment and have an instructor to take you and your students out fishing.
- Find out more about your regional Fish & Wildlife Office here.
June 2025
- Read the June Newsletter
- Invasive Species BINGO! These Invasive Species BINGO cards were created by a seasonal employee here at Lake Champlain Maritime Museum and feature a variety of aquatic invasive species. This resource is accessible to grades 3-12 and can be used in a way that fits a variety of age groups.
- Clean, Drain and Dry: These resources can help you teach your students about the importance of cleaning, draining, and drying all equipment before bringing it to a new body of water.
May 2025
- Read the May Newsletter
- Green Stormwater Solutions Project: In this project, submitted by a teacher in our watershed, students in grades 6-8 use their knowledge of nonpoint source pollution, runoff, and watersheds to design and build models of Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) solutions for their school campus.
- Watershed Games: This collection of watershed-focused games from Caring For Our Watersheds is a great way to keep students entertained and learning. The games Watershed Detective, Footprint Calculator, and Global Life Game are suitable for middle grades students while Watershed Explorer is more suited toward students in 3-5 grades.
April 2025
- Read the April Newsletter
- LCBP’s Summit to Shore: This amazing collection was created in collaboration with Peregrine Productions and allows you to “digitally explore the landscape around Lake Champlain, “from distant mountain peaks in the headwaters to wetlands on the lake’s shoreline.”
- Summit to Shore: The resource focuses on three rivers and their subwatersheds: the Winooski River, the Ausable River, and the Missisquoi River.
- No Other Lake Film: This 40-minute long film follows a young filmmaker who kayaks up the length of Lake Champlain.
March 2025
- Read the March Newsletter
- Earth Day Advocacy Packets and Toolkits: EarthDay.org has a number of great lesson plans and resources that make it worth taking a little bit of time to deep dive into.
- Toolkits: The Toolkits are designed to be used during Earth Week, with a different theme for each day of the school week.
- Advocacy Packets: EarthDay.org’s Advocacy Packets are geared toward helping students take action themselves. The topics include composting, school gardens, pollinators, sustainability, clean air, and eliminating plastics.
- Lake Champlain Basin Program: Diving In The Lake Champlain Basin Program’s Diving In series showcases people throughout the watershed working to improve the health of Lake Champlain.
- International Baccalaureate Exhibition Project: This project, submitted by an educator from Addison County, has students choose an issue based on the United Nations’ Sustainability Goals to research and present upon.
February 2025
- Read the February Newsletter
- Climate Change and Lake Champlain Lesson Plan: This lesson plan, created by Museum staff, uses the Lake Champlain Basin Program’s 2024 State of the Lake Report and is geared toward grades 6-8.
- The Energy Dectectives: This amazing resource offers FREE paper books for students and accompanying resources for teachers. Geared toward elementary students, these picture books focus on two children who are trying to solve a mystery and end up learning more about how they can conserve energy.
- Climate Resilience in Your Community: Created by NOAA and the Nurture Nature Center, this resource is geared toward students in grades 3-8 and comes with an educator’s guide.
January 2025
- Read the January Newsletter
- Invasive Species Super Sleuth Game: This game from NOAA and Sea Grant is designed to get students engaged in learning about aquatic invasive species. There are two levels: “Junior Detective” for grades 4-6 and “Super Sleuth” for grades 7-10.
- New York Department of Environmental Conservation-Invasive Species: New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation has several great resources for teaching about invasive species. Both of these resources are designed for middle school and high school students, with leveled activities for each grade band.
- National Park Services-Invasive Species: This animated video from the park service does a great job explaining what an invasive species is by comparing invasive species to non-native species and native species.
December 2024
- Read the December Newsletter
- Trout Grow on Trees: Both this video from Vermont Fish and Wildlife and this collection of activities from Stroud Water Research Center focus on trout’s dependency on trees to create an ideal habitat.
- Lesson Plans from Trout In the Classroom: Troutintheclassroom.org offers a wide variety of free lessons that can be used throughout the process of raising your trout or salmon.
November 2024
- Read the November Newsletter
- Science Toolkits from the Wayfinder Society: This resource is a treasure trove for environmental educators whose curriculum focuses on pollution, plastics, and their impact on marine life.
- National Park Virtual Field Trips: The National Park Service offers a wide variety of lesson plans, activities, and virtual field trips for teachers to use in their classrooms, including scheduling a live program with a ranger out in the field!
October 2024
- Read the October Newsletter
- Lake Champlain Basin Program’s Interactive Atlas: Lake Champlain Basin Program’s Interactive Atlas allows you to place provided data sets onto a detailed map of the Lake Champlain Drainage Basin.
- National Geographic’s MapMaker: National Geographic’s MapMaker allows you to view and customize maps of any global location by adding drawings and layers of information to your maps and saving your creations for future use.
- Google’s My Maps: This tool from Google allows you to create your own maps using whatever data you choose to input and Google Earth. The information page linked below showcases several potential uses and lesson plans to incorporate into your classroom, but the sky is the limit when it comes to potential uses for this tool.
September 2024
- Read the September Newsletter
- NOAA’s Back to School Bundle: This collection of resources from NOAA includes lesson plans for grade K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12, each with several sections including ways to engage your students, explore and visualize, visualize data, and background information for educators.
- Lake Champlain Basin Program’s 2024 State of the Lake: Published every three years, LCBP’s State of the Lake Report compiles a variety of types of data to evaluate the health of Lake Champlain and its watershed. It’s a great way to get students looking at place-based scientific data!
August 2024
- Read the August Newsletter
- Virtual Field Labs: This resource contains several science-based virtual field trips that are focused on climate science, blending math and science, making them a great resource in planning an interdisciplinary unit.
- Youth for the Planet Action Resource Kit: This resource from WWF and WeAreTeachers has several lesson plans, activities, and tools that you can use to teach 7th-10th graders about climate change. It even has a Kahoot! that you can use to test your students’ knowledge.
July 2024
- Read the July Newsletter
- NOAA’s MWEE Course & Guide: The first of a two part series, this course is intended to help prepare teachers to facilitate MWEEs or Meaningful Watershed Educational Experiences. If you’re not interested in taking the course but still want to learn about MWEE’s, then check out the Educator’s Guide!
- Watershed Lesson Plan: The National Park Service has a great collection of lesson plans that were created by staff from national parks around the country, which you can use to give your students some great new insight into the importance of watersheds.
- Explore Your Watershed: For Grades 3-5
- What is a Watershed? For Grades 6-8
- Watershed Lessons: For Grades 6-8
June 2024
- Read the June Newsletter
- Wave of Plastic: This five lesson unit was created by the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and is designed for middle school students. The resource also comes with an in-depth Teacher-Facilitator Guide that gives a nice overview of the entire unit.
- Environmental Service-Learning: This document, produced by the EPA, contains a collection of ideas for environmentally-focused service-learning projects and “project spotlights” that showcase projects done at schools around the country.
- Pack a Waste Free Lunch! This EPA resource is geared toward decreasing the amount of waste the that is generated by school lunches.
May 2024
- Read the May 2024 Newsletter
- Green Schoolyards America: This resource from Green Schoolyards America is a great tool to use as you look for ways to get your students outside and has three different free digital books with lesson plans and ideas to get your students outside and learning right on your school grounds.
- Watershed Explorer Challenge: This booklet encourages students to explore the Lake Champlain Watershed and learn more about different aspects of its ecology and geology. Includes FREE printed copies for all of your students at a variety of locations around the state-including the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum-or you can use the digital copy on the website.
April 2024
- Read the April 2024 Newsletter
- Our Scrumptious Lake Lesson Plans: These lesson plans go along with Our Scrumptious Lake PHYTOTASTIC!, a humorous science-themed graphic novel presenting complex science that is engaging and relatable. Check out more from the author, Sandy Murphy M.Ed., on her website.
- Understanding Plankton Lesson Plans: These lesson plans help prepare students for an activity in which they use a net to catch plankton then look at them under a microscope. Grades 4-6 here. Grades 6-8 here, which uses a National Geographic write-up on plankton.
March 2024
- Read the March 2024 Newsletter
- Our Scrumptious Lake PHYTOTASTIC! A humorous science-themed graphic novel presents complex science that is engaging and relatable.
- How Can Something So Tiny Have Such a Huge Impact: A lesson plan to accompany the graphic novel featured above and were actually created by the author Sandy Murphy M.Ed. Also comes with an Interdisciplinary Learning Resource.
February 2024
- Read the February 2024 Newsletter
- Clean Water Act Digital Exhibit: Celebrate World Water Day with your class by taking a tour of this digital exhibit, including a scavenger hunt.
- Fred the Fish: Fred the Fish is an activity that is especially helping younger students understand the impact of pollution and the importance of clean water, created by Eco-Schools, USA.
- These 7 Women are Working to Make Water Cleaner and Safer: An article from the Story Exchange published for World Water Day, including a worksheet.
January 2024
- Read the January 2024 Newsletter
- Interactive Map of Ice Age Waters: On this map you can see both the extent of the glacier as it receded between 14,000 and 10,000 years before the present.
- Glacier Demonstration Lesson Plan: A lesson plan to explain glaciers that can be adapted to suit multiple grade levels from Everest Education Expedition Curriculum.
December 2023
- Read the December 2023 Newsletter
- Scat and Track Series: Vermont Fish and Wildlife’s series for kids in kindergarten to 8th grade to get outside and explore during the winter.
- Animal Tracks Lesson Plan: A lesson plan focused on teaching elementary students about animal tracks from New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation.
- Footprints in the Snow Read Aloud: By Cynthia Benjamin to go with the Animal Tracks Lesson Plan
- Images for an Indoor “Field Trip”: An indoor option for students to find tracks around the classroom.
- Animal Tracks Pocket Guide: A guide from Vermont Fish and Wildlife.
November 2023
- Read the November 2023 Newsletter
- Climate Kids: A great online space with tools, lessons, and games to teach elementary and intermediate students about climate change.
- Graphing Temperature Models Lesson Plan: A lesson plan from ClimateScience.org focuses on teaching students about graphs and how to read and use a graph.
October 2023
- Read the October 2023 Newsletter
- Meet the Scientist: A video series by Lake Champlain Basin Program spotlighting some of the scientists in our region who are working to better understand the water quality, ecology, and history of Lake Champlain and its watershed.
- Vermont Fish and Wildlife Fish Culture Station Video: A video with Bret Ladago, a fisheries biologist, as he explains what fish culture stations are and their importance.
- Tour of Salisbury Fish Hatchery: A guided video tour of the Salisbury Fish Culture Station, which shows all of the different parts of the station in addition to explaining some background information about it
- Fish Culture Station Worksheet: A worksheet to go along with the two above videos that will push students to think like a scientist and fill out a research permit application.
September 2023
- Read the September 2023 Newsletter
- Watershed Sleuth Challenge: A student-driven mini unit focused on learning about watersheds
- WikiWatershed Runoff Simulation: Using this tool, you can adjust the landcover, soil type, and the amount of rainfall to see how much of the water evaporates, infiltrates, and runs off
- Worksheet for Runoff Simulation
August 2023
- Read the August 2023 Newsletter
- River Runner: An interactive map that lets users follow the path of a raindrop to the ocean
- EPA How’s My Waterway: Explore water quality by zip code or body of water
- Lesson Plan for How’s My Waterway
Become a Contributor
Are you interested in contributing lesson plans or materials to this newsletter to share with other educators? Lake Champlain Maritime Museum will pay educators $200 to share a lesson plan or piece of material (such as a worksheet, graphic organizer, etc.) with a write up describing how teachers can use it. If you’re interested in contributing, use the link below to fill out a brief interest form.
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