School Program Resources

Making a Splash in Northern Kentucky Classrooms Since 2004

SD1 offers FREE environmental education opportunities to schools within our service area. This includes partnering on an inquiry-based elementary Environmental Unit exploring water science and leading middle/high school students through an experiential civil engineering Storm Water Challenge project. All materials and support are provided, plus your participation earns your school a monetary credit on their storm water bill!

SD1 Environmental Unit

Each year SD1 partners with local elementary schools to teach an Environmental Unit which consists of five one-hour lessons covering topics like watersheds, water pollution, best management (water) practices and wetlands.

SD1 offers participating schools in our service area a credit on their storm water bill when they successfully complete the Environmental Unit and submit required student work.

Geared toward fourth and fifth grades, the unit reaches thousands of Northern Kentucky students every year. Workbooks and supplies for hands-on activities are provided for free to all schools who enroll in the program. 

Please contact adee@sd1.org for more information about this opportunity.

Click here to access the Teacher Toolkit, a one-stop shop for all teachers/schools participating in our Environmental Unit!

SD1 Storm Water Challenge  

SD1’s Storm Water Challenge invites students to be part of the solution to storm water pollution by designing a BMP for their school or community site! Through this project-based learning challenge, SD1 supports upper middle and high school engineering and/or environmental science students through the following experience: 

• Learning the importance of storm water management in their community.   
• Exploring their school site (physically and/or virtually via GIS mapping) to better understand storm water management on their school campus.  
• Identifying areas for improving storm water management on their school campus.   
• Investigating BMPs as solutions to improve storm water management on their school campus.  
• Calculating storm water runoff rates and BMP sizing to appropriately engineer storm water solutions. 
• Propose a Storm Water Design Project to improve storm water management on their school campus by providing a comprehensive project summary.
• Presenting project summary and scope to stakeholders for consideration.

Experiential learning opportunities available throughout the challenge may include an in-school introductory presentation from an SD1 representative about the challenge and provided resources, field trip tour of BMP demonstrations at SD1's Public Service Park, virtual Q&A sessions with SD1 Engineers/Environmental Scientists, and/or a panel of SD1 judges to review final Storm Water Challenge student project submissions.  

Participation in the challenge is flexible, depending on your classroom needs and interests. Project proposals can be an individual or team effort. You can learn more about the challenge here, or by reaching out to adee@sd1.org for more information.