Water Conservation Institute: Home

Water Conservation Institute (WCI) will begin during the week of spring break, from Monday, April 18 through Friday, April 22, 2022. Participants will attend all five days from 9:00am to 3:00pm each day. On Monday, Thursday and Friday WCI will meet at the Genovesi Environmental Study Center. On Tuesday WCI will meet at the New York City Department of Environmental Protection's Newtown Creek Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility, and on Wednesday WCI will meet at The Paley Center for Media. Lunch will be provided on each day.

After completing the five day institute during spring break, participants will attend a full-day field trip on Thursday, June 9, 2022 to New Croton Reservoir and Teatown Lake Reservation. The trip will include experiencing the watershed in person, releasing trout, and attending a stream study class. Participants will travel by charter bus and a brown-bag lunch will be provided.

WCI will culminate in one week on July, during which participants will put their new knowledge into action by serving as an assistant facilitator during a week-long Wonderful World of Water camp for elementary school students. There will be two sessions of camp during the week of Monday, July 11 through Friday, July 15, 2022 and another two sessions of camp during the week of Monday, July 18 through Friday, July 22, 2022. 

All participants in WCI must attend all five days of spring break, the June 9 field trip, and one culminating week of camp in July:

• Day One - Monday, April 18, 2022
• Day Two - Tuesday, April 19, 2022
• Day Three - Wednesday, April 20, 2022
• Day Four - Thursday, April 21, 2022
• Day Five - Friday, April 22, 2022
• Field Trip - Thursday, June 9, 2022
• Camp Week One: Monday, July 11 through Friday, July 15, 2022
• Camp Week Two: Monday, July 18 through Friday, July 22, 2022

Here are the partners who have helped to make the Water Conservation Institute happen:

Mary Ann Cappiello is a Professor of Language and Literacy in the Graduate School of Education at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Prior to that, she served as a curriculum facilitator for English Language Arts and Social Studies at the middle level, and taught English Language Arts and Humanities at the middle and high school level in New York and New Hampshire. At Lesley, she teaches courses in children's and young adult literature and literacy methods, including a specialized course in nonfiction for children and young adults, mentors the content literacy and children’s literature courses, and advises doctoral students. Previously, she served as Program Director of the Collaborative Internship Program, a residency-based teacher preparation program in its fifth decade.

Along with Erika Dawes, she is the co-author of Teaching with Text Sets (Shell, 2012) and Teaching to Complexity: A Framework for Evaluating Literary and Content-Area Texts (Shell, 2014) and a forthcoming book with Stenhouse Publishers in 2020 that focuses on using text sets across the curriculum in grades 3-5. She has been a guest on public radio and a consultant to public television, and her work has appeared in English Journal, Language Arts, The Dragon Lode, School Library Journal, and School Library Connection. She blogs about children's and young adult literature currently at "The Classroom Bookshelf," a School Library Journal blog and formerly at “The Uncommon Corps.” From 2016-2019 she reviewed children's and middle grade books for Language Arts, and from 2015-2018 she was a member of the National Council of Teachers of English's Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction (K-8) Committee, serving two years as chair.