Printer-friendlyHudson River Lesson Plans
Sample Lessons Available for Grades 3-5
Classroom teachers in the Hudson Valley are eager to include more river study in their curricula. They recognize the potential of the Hudson River to help their students meet New York State learning standards with engaging immediacy.
The Hudson River Estuary Program aims to realize that potential by developing a full range of K-12 curriculum resources about the Hudson. The lessons being produced are standards-driven, place-based, and interdisciplinary. They present the Hudson as context in lessons aimed at developing the understandings and skills required by state standards and tests, rather than as a stand-alone unit putting the river first. Recognizing that teachers are pressed for time both in the classroom and in prep, the lessons are easy to set up and implement.
Our initial efforts have been focused on materials for Grades 3-5. With input from environmental educators, classroom teachers, school administrators, and scientists, staff constructed a framework of key content understandings and linked them to state learning standards and to learning outcomes specified in the State Education Department's suggested syllabi. Staff also reviewed existing curriculum resources available from providers such as Project Wild, the Teaching the Hudson Valley initiative, Clearwater, and other groups. They then went to work on filling the gaps-developing draft lesson plans for trial use in classroom, field testing them, and making changes based on the results and feedback from educators.
The lessons available are grouped by discipline, though a given lesson will often incorporate learning in several subject areas. In addition, content covered in a lesson devoted to one set of skills is often reinforced in another lesson aimed at a different set of skills. For example, students can read about the blue crab's life cycle in an English Language Arts lesson, and then do a math worksheet about the crab's movements in the estuary.
Use the links below to access descriptions of the lessons in a particular subject area. Teachers may download individual teachers' guides and student worksheets for each lesson, or download packages of lessons focused on a particular skill area such as mathematics.
Links to Hudson River Lessons in:
English Language Arts - This collection of lesson plans allows teachers to integrate study of the Hudson River with instruction in English Language Arts.
Mathematics - These lessons plans use actual data from Hudson River research to construct word problems that require addition and subtraction skills for their solution.
Science - These lessons explore physical and life science topics related to the Hudson.
Social Studies - These lessons look at the Hudson Valley's history, geography and economics through the lense of the region's natural resources.
These lesson plans are designed to address to New York State Learning Standards for English Language Arts, Social Studies, and Mathematics, Science, and Technology. Except for a few lessons clearly labeled as drafts, the activities have been reviewed by classroom teachers and field tested in Hudson Valley schools. As teachers try them out in more classrooms, the education staff of the Hudson River Estuary Program would welcome further feedback. Please use the contact information below to let us know about successes, problems, suggestions for improvement, and ideas for additional lessons.
Bookmark this page and check back on a regular basis, as more lesson plans will be added in months to come.
For more information and additional resources for classroom teachers studying the Hudson, contact:
Steve Stanne
Interpretive Specialist
Hudson River Estuary Program/NYS Water Resources Institute, Cornell University
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
Mailing Address:
NYSDEC - Hudson River Estuary Program
21 South Putt Corners Road
New Paltz, NY 12561
Phone: 845-256-3077
Email: hrep@gw.dec.state.ny.us
