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The Discover your Watershed program is an opportunity for girls of all ages to:

• Discover! Learn about your watershed, your home! Develop your math, science, technology, art, language and writing skills while exploring your neighborhood watershed
• Connect! Engage with similar organizations and your community – learn from them and share what you’ve discovered
• Take Action! Take action and advocate on the local, regional and state level for protecting and restoring your watershed

Our girls make a difference!

We’ve got a wonderful opportunity for our girls – the water quality testing data they collect from their adopted watersheds can now be incorporated into the San Francisco Bay Index – Ecological Scorecard report!

The Bay Institute’s highly respected biannual San Francisco Bay Index is the “report card” on the Bay’s health, providing both scientists and policy makers with critical information.

Our partner, The Bay Institute will incorporate the water testing data our girls’ are collecting in their watersheds. They are delighted to be working with us – Girl Scouts will provide them with the on-going long-term data sets they need.

For us, our girls know that their work is making a difference. And, the San Francisco Bay Index will give us benchmarks as we move forward -- how and where are we making a difference in the health of our Bay?

For the data to be included, the girls must follow the protocols set out by The Bay Institute’s scientists. The good news is that we can continue to use the World Monitoring Day test kits and the reporting form is very straightforward. Download the instructions and reporting form below:

• Water Quality Testing Directions (PDF)
• Water Quality Testing Form (Excel)

Here’s the link to The Bay Institute’s website and the State of the Bay report http://www.bay.org/Scorecard/2005.Bay.Index.Report.pdf

Discover your Watershed Service Projects

Calling all troop leaders! Sign-up your troop for your service unit's service project and discover your watershed! Download the chart below to find out where and when your service unit's service project will be held, then contact your service unit for details and to register. (Please don’t contact the partner organizations directly.)

Click here to download the service unit Service Project Chart.

Activity Book

Use the activities in this book to teach girls about the bay, your local watershed, and the ways that water is important to plants, animals, and people. Click the links below to download each activity and any additional materials needed.

• Introduction
• Activity 1
• Activity 2
  Activity 2 Supplemental Materials:
  • Biotic Index
  • Disolved Oxygen
  • Flow
  • Flow Form
  • Habitat Assessment
  • Stream Monitoring
  • Tempurature
  • Turbidity
  • Wonderful Wacky Water Creatures (Large File: 5MB)
• Activity 3
• Activity 4
• Activity 5
• Activity 6
• Activity 7
• Activity 8
• Activity 9
• Activity 10
• Activity 11
• Activity 12
• Activity 13
• Activity 14
• Activity 15

Discover your Watershed FAQs:

What are the goals?

• Every Council service unit picks a watershed to adopt over the long term
• In 2007 50% of all troops take part in the activities
• A “creature count” and water quality information is collected and summarized for identified streams and creeks – this information will be collected over the long-term and incorporated into The Bay Institute’s bi-annual State of the Bay report

Will Discover Your Watershed have earned awards?

Yes! You can earn three awards by participating in Discover Your Watershed activities. Do 3 activities and earn "the stream." Do 3 more, and earn "the tree," and do 3 more and you can earn "the pelican." Patches will be available in the Council Store in late November.