Exploring Our Green Community – Anacostia Volunteer Adventure
Students will explore the concept of community stewardship by investigating the outdoor volunteer organizations listed on the Anacostia Volunteer Outdoor Adventure Trail poster. They will learn about local green spaces, identify environmental needs, and connect volunteer activities to real-world community health and environmental science.
Learning Objectives
- Identify local green spaces and environmental organizations in the Anacostia River area.
- Describe different types of volunteer activities that help communities and ecosystems.
- Connect volunteer work to concepts of environmental stewardship, community health, and habitat restoration.
- Collaborate to design a hypothetical volunteer project for their own school or neighborhood.
Materials Needed
- Projector or printed copy of the Anacostia Volunteer Adventure Trail poster
- Student notebooks or activity sheets
- Markers, colored pencils
- Large poster paper or digital presentation tool (optional for extension)
- Internet access (optional for research extension)
Activity Procedure
1. Engage: “What’s in the poster?” (10 minutes)
- Are your students familiar with the Anacostia River? If not, start with displaying images of the River and asking students if they have been to a river before and what do rivers mean to them. Facilitate a circle discussion with every student having the chance to share or pass.
- Display the poster. Ask students:
“What do you notice? What words or images stand out?”
“What do you think this poster is sharing?” - Guide students to see that it’s a map of outdoor volunteer opportunities.
- Introduce the Anacostia River as a local waterway and explain that many groups work to care for it.
2. Explore: Decoding the Trail (10 minutes)
- Provide students with a simplified list of organizations from the poster (e.g., “Friends of Anacostia Park,” “The Well at Oxon Run,” “City Blossoms,” “Kelly Miller Farm,” “Friends of the National Arboretum,” etc.).
- In small groups, students will:
- Guess the Volunteer Activity: Based on the name and drawings on the poster near the name, what might volunteers do there?
(Examples: planting trees, cleaning rivers, growing food, tending flowers, building trails.) - Categorize Organizations: Are they focused on gardens, parks, farms, trails, or cleanups?
- Share Out: Each group shares one organization and their guessed activity.
- Guess the Volunteer Activity: Based on the name and drawings on the poster near the name, what might volunteers do there?
3. Explain: Connecting to Community and Environment (10 minutes)
- Facilitate a discussion linking volunteer work to community benefits, moving up in scale from smaller, direct impacts to larger, indirect impacts of volunteering:
- Gardening/Farming → access to fresh food and learning new skills leads to better physical and mental health for communities
- Cleanups → cleaner water, safer parks, and healthier wildlife creates beautiful spaces for people to play and grow
- Planting Native Species → better habitats, less erosion, and more pollinators leads to a healthier overall ecosystem
- Introduce vocabulary: stewardship, restoration, native plants, ecosystem, volunteerism.
4. Elaborate: Design Your Own Volunteer Project (15 minutes)
- Students (in groups or individually) design a volunteer project for their school or neighborhood.
- Name: Create a catchy name for your project.
- Location: Where would it happen? (school garden, local park, etc.)
- Activity: What would volunteers do? (e.g., “Litter Patrol Tuesdays,” “Native Plant Pollinator Garden,” “Rain Barrel Installation Team”)
- Benefit: How does it help people and the environment?
- Students can sketch a logo or mini-poster for their project.
5. Evaluate: Share and Reflect (10 minutes)
- Students share their project ideas.
- Exit ticket or discussion:
- “Which volunteer activity would you most want to try and why?”
- “How does taking care of green spaces help our community?”
Extension Activities
- Research Extension: Students pick one organization from the poster to research online and present.
- Field Trip Connection: If possible, visit a local garden, park, or river cleanup site. Apply to Live It Learn It’s Bridge the Gap field trip fund to receive transportation funds for a field trip to a local garden/park/organization.
- Service Learning: Partner with a local organization to plan a real volunteer day (e.g., school cleanup, planting day).
