Alabama's River of Words: National Environmental/Arts/Literacy Program
Comes to Alabama
An international program for kindergarten through twelfth-grade students that blends environmental science with art and literacy is under way in Alabama thanks to a multidisciplinary partnership.
River of Words (ROW) is a U.S. Library of Congress-affiliated program designed to promote watershed awareness, literacy and the arts. This year, for the first time, the program is being offered in Alabama.
Already involved in many outreach programs for Alabama's youth, the Auburn-based Alabama Center for the Book and AU Environmental Institute (AUEI) joined together to bring the program to Alabama along with the Auburn University College of Agriculture, Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station and the AU Libraries, and other on- and off-campus affiliates. The result is the creation of an interdisciplinary learning experience in the arts and environmental sciences to benefit Alabama's youngest stewards.
"The project weaves together natural, environmental and forestry education with significant arts education. Utilizing one discipline to teach the other makes each subject more accessible to a wider range of students, allowing for various learning styles and approaches," explains Jay Lamar of the Alabama Center for the Book.
The River of Words program invites students to explore the natural and cultural history of their local watersheds–the puddles and ponds of their own backyards–and then to express, through poetry and art, what they discover. That creative work is submitted to a national ROW contest, from which eight national winners are chosen. Those eight students receive a trip to Washington, D.C., where they are recognized in a Library of Congress-sponsored awards ceremony.
Alabama's submissions will be sent directly to the national competition, but they will also be judged on the state level. State winners will be honored in an awards ceremony to be held in April in conjunction with AU's Earth Day celebration.
The deadline for submitting students' art and poetry work to the national ROW office is Feb. 15, 2004. Guidelines for the contest, teaching guides for educators and more background on ROW are available at the national ROW Web site, www.riverofwords.org, or the Alabama Web site, http://riverofwords.auburn.edu. To learn more about Alabama ROW call the AUEI at 334-844-4132 or Alabama Center for the Book at 334-844-4946.
Though Alabama's ROW program is available statewide, organizers are conducting an enhanced pilot project to create special environmental/watershed outdoor classroom experiences for under-resourced students in Alabama's Black Belt, beginning with students in the Wilcox County schools. These events were held last fall at the Black Freedmen's Living Historical Farm for Children, Inc., in Furman, Ala. Students, such as those pictured above, got lots of hands-on art and science experience.