GIS Curriculum for Nature to Debut for River School Program

As students and parents begin a new school year, the Chicago River Schools Network (CRSN) is launching a special curriculum in partnership with Chicago Public Schools. The curriculum features three new lessons that use maps, help students visualize data, and introduce them to Friends’ award-winning Natural Solutions Tool.

One of the biggest opportunities in improving the river system is bringing together all of the immense amount of data that exists. To meet that challenge, Friends of the Chicago River and the Greater Chicago Watershed Alliance launched the Natural Solutions Tool in 2021. This free, publicly available tool helps decision makers and community leaders invest in nature-based stormwater solutions while also addressing environmental, climate, social, and public health goals. Friends’ new school curriculum extends that effort, preparing teachers and students to be future decision makers and leaders in their own communities.

The curriculum includes lessons for all grade levels. An upper elementary lesson introduces basic map-reading skills. A middle school lesson asks students to explore data about their own neighborhoods—such as tree coverage and air quality—and connect it to human health and equity. A high school lesson gets students using the Natural Solutions Tool directly, sparking conversations about environmental justice and the climate crisis with real-world data.

By equipping teachers across the Chicago-Calumet River watershed with training, presentations, and field trips, the CRSN reached more than 20,000 students last school year. The program inspires curiosity and stewardship, trains teachers to integrate river ecology into their classrooms, and fosters the next generation of environmental leaders working for a healthier, climate-resilient river system.

“Developing the Natural Solutions Tool curriculum was a collaborative effort involving many teachers from across the watershed,” said Friends’ Education Manager Mark Hauser. “It is exciting to see these lessons become a resource for all students who wish to understand past history and current environmental data as they search to develop a future for their communities and the region.”

GIS training is not commonplace in early education but it is expanding across public and private secors. Field trips remain central to the CRSN experience. Since 2010, the program has averaged 50 trips annually, connecting thousands of Chicago-area students with the river. Students test water quality, explore aquatic life, and even wade into the river itself. These hands-on experiences continue to inspire Hauser, who has dedicated 18 years to Friends, educating young people about river ecology and showing how science and time in nature can lead to advocacy.

The 2024–2025 school year was one of the program’s most successful:

  • 25,000+ students were impacted by the program
  • 281 teachers used Friends’ River Curriculum to teach river science, history, and ecology.
  • 55 field trips brought more than 2,300 students to the river to test water quality, pick up litter, and study macroinvertebrates in the river.
  • 15 classroom visits reached more than 400 students.
  • 250 students attended the Chicago River Student Congress at Northeastern Illinois University.

Since its founding in 1996, the CRSN has engaged more than half a million students and teachers in hands-on learning through science, language arts, and history activities across the watershed. Designed to align with Next Generation Science Standards, the program gives K–12 teachers the resources and personalized support they need to help students investigate real-world issues and design service-learning projects that improve their communities and the river.

CRSN resources include lesson plans, field-based activities, and presentations centered on the Chicago-Calumet River system. To learn more about our rivers, watch our “Chicago River Talks” series presented by Hauser on YouTube. Educators interested in scheduling a field trip or classroom presentation can reach out to Mark Hauser at mhauser@chicagoriver.org.