The Clackamas River Basin Council is excited to announce the Clackamas360 Virtual Watershed Tour – a custom watershed health education program now using virtual reality Oculus Go headsets in the classroom!
Local teachers interested in bringing a two-day watershed health experience to their classrooms please email or call us at 503-303-4372 or amy@clackamasriver.org.
About the Program
CRBC designed the Clackamas360 program to be a self-guided educational tour for students to learn about the Clackamas watershed. Using drone photography taken throughout the lower Clackamas basin, CRBC created this 12-scene program, which guides students through various watershed health topics, giving them full control over their experience as they make their way through the content.
Information for Teachers
The Clackamas360 Watershed Health Education Program offer teachers a two-part experience for students; an in-person classroom experience and a field trip to a local restoration project for stewardship activities. Clackamas360 follows standards of the Oregon Environmental Literacy Program.
Clackamas360 Classroom Curriculum
The classroom experience consists of two activities; the Clackamas360 virtual tour and a customizable activitiy based on classroom curriculum.
- Clackamas360 Virtual Tour: Clackamas360 virtual tour uses Meta Oculus Go headsets to bring students through the lower Clackamas basin using twelve 360-degree drone-captured scenes. Placed throughout these scenes are landmarks, educational graphics, and opportunities to think critically about the scene around them. Voiceover is included which will help guide students through the experience. Each scene in the Clackamas360 Virtual Watershed Tour has a watershed health topic and theme:
- Clackamette Park: Introduction to the Clackamas360
- Willamette Falls: Cultural perspectives
- Timber Forest: What is a watershed?
- Rock Creek: Urban watersheds are all around you
- Riverside Park: Resources from the Clackamas basin
- Eagle Creek Community Forest: Watershed function, “dynamic rivers,” and importance of riparian zones and large wood
- Eagle Creek Falls: Common riparian plants and animals
- North Fork Dam: Watershed stresses
- Carli Creek: Managing stresses with engineered systems
- Eagle Creek at Bonnie Lure State Park: Managing stresses through restoration
- High Rocks Park: What you can do to help
- Upper Clackamas River: Just for fun – two minute whitewater rafting video!
- Optional Customizable Activity
- Option 1: EPA How’s My Waterway Activity – Using the EPA website, students will learn which watershed they are located within and the condition of their waterway. Students will take a deep dive into the health of a local watershed of their choice and investigate the various water quality indicator categories and their significance.
- Option 2: Macroinvertebrate activity – Using worksheets created by CRBC, students learn about indicators of watershed health using the ETP index.
- Option 3: Source water and water quality activity – the Clackamas River is a drinking water source for over 300,000 Oregonians. In this activity students learn about the Clackamas as a drinking water source, why it is important to protect and preserve this source water, and what they can do to help.
- Other options: Geography, botany and native plants, what is a watershed.
Clackamas360 Field Trip Curriculum
The Clackamas360 Field Trip curriculum is based on expanding and reinforcing what was learned about watershed health and water quality in the classroom presentation. The Clackamas River Basin Council is excited to offer the following field trip activities at Carli Creek in Clackamas, OR:
- Carli Creek Water Quality Project Tour
- Water Quality Assessment
- Tree Planting Stewardship Activity
- Macroinvertabrate Sampling
- Invasive Species Removal
What teachers are saying:
“The 360 tool was very impressive and comprehensive and aligned perfectly (and above and beyond) my curriculum.”
What students are saying: I learned…
“Learning about the importance of Salmon and how much they effect the ecosystem in the Pacific Northwest and the damage that could be done when climate change comes in effect.”
“That salmon are a keystone species in our ecosystem and if we continue to take them away from their habitats and if climate change continues they could go extinct in our ecosystem and cause a domino effect to the ecosystem.”
“How salmon are vital to many ecosystems and how salmon have a cultural/spiritual significance to indigenous people.”
“I learned that our watershed in Clackamas is a lot bigger than I thought it was and is very vital for all species to function. I also didn’t know that salmon were keystone species and were that vital.”
“One important thing I learned in class was how crucial salmon are in the ecosystem for everything to function correctly.”
“That salmon are a keystone species in our ecosystem and if we continue to take them away from their habitats and if climate change continues they could go extinct in our ecosystem and cause a domino effect to the ecosystem.”
“Salmon are the life source of marine derived nitrogen- to help the plants photosynthesize.”
“I learned that both the Salmon named native peoples and the Salmon fish population have been decimated by European and American Colonialism.”
“After the wildfires we should still protect the land and not try to salvage the wood otherwise it can create landslides.”
“I learned that tree’s in the pacific northwest acquired traits like gigantism so they could store more water for the dry summers.”