Watershed Game Leader Training - Rockford, Illinois - September 22 or 23

The Watershed Game - Train the Trainer Workshop

You are invited to learn how land use impact water quality and become a trained facilitator to engage your community.  Learn to use the new Classroom Version for youth and the Stream, Lake, and River Versions for local leaders.  (This workshop is rescheduled from July 21-22.)

Sept 22 (Friday) or Sept 23 (Saturday)  
(Participants select one day to attend)
9:30 am to 5:00 pm
$20/person - a bargain!​

North Suburban Library
6340 N 2nd Street
Loves Park, IL 61111
(Loves Park is just north of Rockford along I-90 in northern Illinois)

Registration required at z.umn.edu/rockford 

Workshop led by the University of Minnesota in partnership with The Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation and the League of Women Voters (LWV) - Jo Daviess County, LWV- Upper Mississippi River Region Inter League Organization, LWV-  Lake Michigan Region Inter League Organization.  With grant funds from 1 Mississippi; an organization supported by The McKnight and Walton Family Foundations.

$20 per person.
Includes morning and afternoon coffee, juice and refreshments, and lunch.

​Who should attend?
League of Women Voter members and Rotary Club members from Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, staff from conservation land trust organizations, Extension and Sea Grant educators, teachers and informal science educators, and community members from the surrounding area that want to lead water and land conservation education efforts. 

About the Watershed Game
The Watershed Game is an interactive tool that helps individuals understand the connection between land use and water quality. Participants learn how a variety of land uses impact water and natural resources, increase their knowledge of best management practices (BMPs), and learn how their choices can prevent adverse impacts. Participants apply plans, practices, and policies that help them achieve a water quality goal for a stream, lake, or river. 

The Watershed Game is available in four versions. The Stream, Lake, and River Versions for Local Leaders are used with elected and appointed officials, community leaders, business leaders, and citizens and a Classroom Version for use with middle to high school youth audiences.  The Watershed Game is a curriculum and resource developed and published by the University of Minnesota Sea Grant Program and University of Minnesota Extension. 
​
This training will feature:

• A showcase and demonstrations of the various versions of the WSG (Classroom Version and Stream, Lake, and River Versions for Local Leaders).
• Exercises where participants role-play and lead practice use.
• Discussions and presentations with game facilitators.
• Creating teams of League Members to implement the WSG in communities.

Objectives of the Train the Trainer Workshop:

• Participants will leave prepared and more confident to organize, facilitate, and use the Watershed Game (WSG) with a variety of audiences including with residents, local community leaders and youth.
• Participants will increase their knowledge and understanding of core water literacy concepts.
• Participants will be more enabled to engage and bring together citizens, business owners, and other community members often with differing opinions about water resources.
• Participants will increase their skills at developing and communicating learning objectives to target audiences and to use the WSG to teach to those objectives.
• Increase knowledge and understanding of local, regional, and national impacts of our actions and decisions to water resources.
• University of Minnesota faculty will share successful strategies and experiences with the WSG including best game facilitation practices and practices to avoid.
• Participants will be able to share their successful strategies with one another in a peer-to-peer atmosphere and begin to create a team of watershed education cohorts.

Registration Information
Participants can register online at  http://z.umn.edu/rockford.

Click here for a workshop flyer
For more information, please contact:

John Bilotta | 612-624-7708 | jbilotta@umn.edu

Bonnie Cox | 815-238-1725 |  bonniekaycox@gmail.com