CATAWBA PROJECT
Our Mission Statement!
The Catawba Project is a grassroots environmental education program designed to partner Egg Harbor Township Public School children with Township leaders, environmentalists, parents and community members to work together to help solve real environmental problems. Guided by their teachers, the program puts the student in the driver's seat and in charge of their own educational destiny championing causes, planning classroom activities, and implementing high-quality Service-Leaning projects from beginning to end.
Why is it called the Catawba Project?
The name was borrowed from the South Carolina-based Catawba Tribe – self-proclaimed “people of the river” who, according to early American Settlers, were dependent on the Catawba and Wateree Rivers for their sustenance and survival. Similar to the Catawba Tribe, early settlers to Southern New Jersey were Dependent upon the Great Egg Harbor River for their food and the shipbuilding, fishing and trading industries it provided them. Tagged as the “Catawba Project” in 2000, the hands-on outdoor classroom program celebrates our local heritage as river people dedicated to protecting and maintaining the health and well being of the great Egg Harbor River!
History of the Catawba Project
The Catawba Project is a grassroots environmental education program designed to partner Egg Harbor Township public school children with Township leaders, environmentalists, parents and community members to work together to help solve real environmental problems. Guided by their teachers, the program puts students in the driver’s seat and in charge of their own educational destiny championing causes, planning classroom activities, and implementing high quality Service-Learning projects from beginning to end.
What began as a water quality testing classroom experiment in 2000 has grown into an award-winning environmental umbrella program that has impacted more the 5,000 Egg Harbor Township students and sparked many ancillary district projects including Fresh and Saltwater Expeditions, Outdoor Classroom sites, Reforestation project, Energy-Saving Solar and Recycling programs, and soon a 6-Acre Community Teaching garden! It has shaped the way Egg Harbor Township middle schoolers view the world and empowers then as environmental stewards charged with the hand-on knowledge, tools and desire needed to make a difference in their community! The service-learning infused program curriculum incorporates science, mathematics, technology, history/social studies, language arts, visual and fine arts, and physical education core content curriculum standards.
What exactly is Service-Learning?
We believe children need to roll up their sleeves and get dirty to really understand how the natural world works. Service Learning helps us do that. Service Learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibly, and strengthen communities. Through service-learning initiatives, Egg Harbor Township youth use what they learn in the classroom to solve real-life problems. They not only learn the practical applications of their studies, they become actively contributing citizens and community members through the service they perform.
The Great Egg Harbor River
The Great Egg Harbor River is the ‘Heart” of Egg Harbor Township – a living breathing productive coastal ecosystem that provides infinite hands-on opportunities to Catawba Project Teachers, who use the river as an outdoor classroom to teach students about the importance of preserving our local water sheds through service-learning initiatives.
Affectionately referred to by locals as the “Great Egg,” the 129-mile river corridor travels through 12 municipalities and four counties in Southern New Jersey on its way to the Great Egg Harbor Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. It supports the diverse aquatic and terrestrial habitats and species including estuarine and spawning fish populations, nesting and wintering raptors, colonial nesting water birds, migrating and wintering waterfowl, rare brackish and freshwater tidal wetland communities, plants, and invertebrates. At the last count there were 145 species of special emphasis in the Great Egg Harbor Township River estuary, incorporating 41 species of fish and 87 species of birds. The Great Egg was designated by Congress in 1992 as a National Wild and Scenic Rivers Systems waterway.
The name was borrowed from the South Carolina-based Catawba Tribe – self-proclaimed “people of the river” who, according to early American Settlers, were dependent on the Catawba and Wateree Rivers for their sustenance and survival. Similar to the Catawba Tribe, early settlers to Southern New Jersey were Dependent upon the Great Egg Harbor River for their food and the shipbuilding, fishing and trading industries it provided them. Tagged as the “Catawba Project” in 2000, the hands-on outdoor classroom program celebrates our local heritage as river people dedicated to protecting and maintaining the health and well being of the great Egg Harbor River!
History of the Catawba Project
The Catawba Project is a grassroots environmental education program designed to partner Egg Harbor Township public school children with Township leaders, environmentalists, parents and community members to work together to help solve real environmental problems. Guided by their teachers, the program puts students in the driver’s seat and in charge of their own educational destiny championing causes, planning classroom activities, and implementing high quality Service-Learning projects from beginning to end.
What began as a water quality testing classroom experiment in 2000 has grown into an award-winning environmental umbrella program that has impacted more the 5,000 Egg Harbor Township students and sparked many ancillary district projects including Fresh and Saltwater Expeditions, Outdoor Classroom sites, Reforestation project, Energy-Saving Solar and Recycling programs, and soon a 6-Acre Community Teaching garden! It has shaped the way Egg Harbor Township middle schoolers view the world and empowers then as environmental stewards charged with the hand-on knowledge, tools and desire needed to make a difference in their community! The service-learning infused program curriculum incorporates science, mathematics, technology, history/social studies, language arts, visual and fine arts, and physical education core content curriculum standards.
What exactly is Service-Learning?
We believe children need to roll up their sleeves and get dirty to really understand how the natural world works. Service Learning helps us do that. Service Learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibly, and strengthen communities. Through service-learning initiatives, Egg Harbor Township youth use what they learn in the classroom to solve real-life problems. They not only learn the practical applications of their studies, they become actively contributing citizens and community members through the service they perform.
The Great Egg Harbor River
The Great Egg Harbor River is the ‘Heart” of Egg Harbor Township – a living breathing productive coastal ecosystem that provides infinite hands-on opportunities to Catawba Project Teachers, who use the river as an outdoor classroom to teach students about the importance of preserving our local water sheds through service-learning initiatives.
Affectionately referred to by locals as the “Great Egg,” the 129-mile river corridor travels through 12 municipalities and four counties in Southern New Jersey on its way to the Great Egg Harbor Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. It supports the diverse aquatic and terrestrial habitats and species including estuarine and spawning fish populations, nesting and wintering raptors, colonial nesting water birds, migrating and wintering waterfowl, rare brackish and freshwater tidal wetland communities, plants, and invertebrates. At the last count there were 145 species of special emphasis in the Great Egg Harbor Township River estuary, incorporating 41 species of fish and 87 species of birds. The Great Egg was designated by Congress in 1992 as a National Wild and Scenic Rivers Systems waterway.