The Show Us Your Mussels Challenge
New! For the 2019-2020 school year the Challenge will now include BOTH middle and high school levels.
Minnesota students create original digital media campaigns informing the public about the impact of water quality on native mussels. The school groups that get the message out to the most people will receive FREE field trips to the Minnesota Zoo including bussing, admission, parking and interactive sessions with our Mussel Conservation staff. For more information see the Frequently Asked Questions below or email us at [email protected].
Free Professional Development
Show Us Your Mussels Teacher Training Saturday, September 21, 2019, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Are you interested in learning more about native freshwater mussels and water quality? Would you like to learn more about the Minnesota Zoo and DNR’s conservation work? Join us for a FREE Professional Development including behind the scenes peaks and tours of the Minnesota Zoo’s native freshwater mussel program. In addition to receiving CEUs and being reimbursed for mileage, participants will leave with more knowledge of these critically threatened species and resources to implement the Show Us Your Mussel Challenge for the 2019-2020 school year.
Frequently Asked Questions
The school groups that get the message out to the most people will receive FREE field trips to the Minnesota Zoo including bussing, admission, parking and interactive sessions about our Mussel Conservation program.
In addition, creating a digital media campaign can be a powerful hands-on strategy to help students highlight their science research projects, retain content knowledge and even increase learning goals.
The project can be implemented to address the following benchmarks:
- Minnesota Science Standards related to:
- System Relationships
- Changes in Ecosystems
- Humans Effects on Ecosystems
- Decisions and Health
- Impact of Chemical Technology
- Advanced Placement Environmental Science (APES)
- Earth Systems and Resources (10%–15%)
- Global Water Resources and Use
- The Living World (10%–15%)
- Ecosystem Structure and Diversity
- Natural Ecosystem Change
- Pollution (25%–30%)
- Pollution Types
- Impacts on the Environment and Human Health
- Economic Impacts
- Global Change (10%–15%)
- Loss of Biodiversity
- Earth Systems and Resources (10%–15%)
- Minnesota English Language Arts related to:
- Comprehension and Collaboration
- Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas
- Media Literacy
- International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards related to:
- Digital Citizen
- Knowledge Constructor
- Creative Communicator
- Yes! To access our Free Downloadable curriculum, click here.
Besides having a digital component, the campaign must encourage community members to take some kind of action to improve water quality and conserve native mussel populations.
Projects may be created by individual students or in small groups. Each school may have as many campaigns going on at the same time as they wish. Winning schools will be selected based on the total amount of votes that school receives and how many people are reached by the campaign.
To see examples of 2018-2019 projects, click here.
This year we would like students to focus on the following actions to improve water quality:
Pet waste that washes off lawns and parks during rain and snow melt events contribute to harmful bacteria and nutrient contamination of our river water. Impaired water can become so bad that swimming is not recommended within 48 hours of a rainstorm. Help prevent this by always carrying bags to pick up pet waste and disposing of them in the trash or flush it down the toilet without the bag.
Boating & Fishing, Clean in Clean Out
Invasive zebra mussels that harm our native mussels attach to boat docks and boat hulls. If you use a boat, you can help prevent the spread of zebra mussels by removing all aquatic plants from the boat and trailer, draining all of the water from your boat and bait bucket, never dipping a bucket into a lake if the bucket contains water from another lake, and allowing your boat and trailer to dry in the sun for at least five days before using them in other waters.
Winners will be selected based on two criteria: 1) number of votes received online and 2) number of people reached by the campaign.
The Zoo will provide teachers with a link to embed in student projects. When a member of the public clicks on the link it will send them directly to the voting site. They will be prompted to answer two simple questions and vote for that school. Each person can vote once. Number of votes earned will be reported to schools weekly. The voting portion of the campaign will be open from February 3rd to March 2nd, 2020.
As part of the project, students will be responsible for keeping track of how many people they reach through the campaign. This will mean counting likes, follows, shares, etc. and reporting them back through to the Zoo. Each student group will complete a reflection form which describes their project and its reach. Reflections forms must be completed by the end of the day on March 10, 2020.
Registration deadline: December 20, 2019
Live Campaign: February 3rd to March 2nd, 2020
Once registered, teachers can decide how/when to develop campaigns in their classrooms. However, the website for tracking votes will only be live from February 3rd to March 2nd, 2020. This is the timeframe where students will track how many people are reached through their campaign.
Participants from the schools with the most votes will receive a FREE field trip to the Minnesota Zoo including bussing, parking and admission. They will also receive a behind the scenes tour of mussel conservation work at the Zoo.
One grand prize winning school group will also be selected. In addition to a free field trip the participants from this school will be invited to do mussel work with our conservation team. They will also pitch their campaign to the marketing team at the Zoo.
Winners will be announced by March 16, 2020.
By the end of the 2020 School Year. The exact dates and times will be arranged with the Minnesota Zoo and the winning schools.
|April 2019||Registration opens for the 2019-2020 Challenge|
|September 21 & 27, 2019||Free Professional Development for teachers on the challenge|
|December 20, 2019||Registration closes for the Challenge.|
|End of January 2020||Teachers receive link to embed in student projects.|
|February 3-March 2, 2020||Site is open for voting.|
|March 10, 2020||Student reflection forms due to the Zoo via email.|
|March 16, 2020||Winners contacted by the Zoo.|
|April-June 2020||Field trips for winning schools.|