RIVER-LAB is unique. There is no other known comparable program.

How so?

RIVER-LAB is a set of interconnected units, Grades 3-6 which provide lessons (classroom and trail)
on how our environment works, how it evolved and how we interact with it.

Grade 3 RIVER-LAB

The uniqueness of RIVER-LAB is its focus on the fundamental fact that our environment is composed
of river basin units. This concept is the key to understanding how our environment works and reacts to all impacts. Grade 3 students learn this fundamental with the help of innovative hands-on modeling activities designed by MRWC.

Grade 4 RIVER-LAB

Grade 4 students are involved in further hands-on classroom and trail activities to learn how major events of Earth history have shaped basins and created our underground water system. They learn
how this system is vital to life and how human activity affects natural storage and runoff.

Grade 5 RIVER-LAB

Grade 5 students study the importance of estuarine productivity to coastal life with a fall trip to one of the three local estuaries. On a spring study-trip to the river's floodplain they learn how estuarine productivity depends on the productivity of inland basins.

Grade 6 RIVER-LAB

The Grade 6 students focus on properties of water and gas that determine less-well-recognized
life-supporting features of a basin's main river. Through study including intimate encounters with the stream-bottom organisms active in winter these students are given deeper understanding of how
the system works.

RIVER-LAB was selected as the model for the current science curriculum revision in the Fairfield Public Schools. MRWC is presently involved in revising all RIVER-LAB materials developed since 1969 to make them as effective as possible for general dissemination. MRWC hopes that these materials may enable adoption of Earth-structure fundamentals to provide a much-needed base for environmental education at the elementary and middle school level.