There's a special place in Maryland where students can dig in the dirt, take a hike, and catch an unbeatable glimpse of the Potomac. That place is Alice Ferguson Foundation's Hard Bargain Farm, which annually hosts thousands of K-8 students who interact with plants and animals about which many of them – until now – have only read. More than 8,000 students participate in Bridging the Watershed which takes students to national and state parks in the Potomac Watershed where they learn, hands-on, about how a watershed works and how to keep it clean. Another 10,000 volunteers participate in a day-long cleanup of the river as part of AFF's comprehensive Trash Free Potomac Watershed Initiative. Each year, Alice Ferguson Foundation helps thousands of people connect with nature by milking a cow or cleaning a river bank. Won't you pitch in?
COVID-19 Update:
AFF continues to engage students in environmental education and exploration through live online lessons. Teachers have 15 one-hour lessons to choose from including fish dissection, investigating water quality through the identification of pollution-sensitive macro invertebrates, understanding and identifying invasive plant species, learning about runoff and pollution, and more. Although virtual, students can still identify wiggly macro-invertebrates by counting the number of legs or tails they have, zoom into the tiny teeth of a fish during dissection, and discuss the details of a leaf or flower of an invasive plant.
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