River Puzzle

• Rivers like the Hudson & Delaware are used for myriad purposes, today and historically: the transportation of goods and people; valuable food supplies for communities; drinking water supply; industrial uses; and numerous opportunities for recreation & fun, including swimming, fishing, boating, and connecting with nature.  

• Most importantly, these rivers & their watersheds are our home, and the habitat for a plethora of other living things!  

• This activity helps students deepen their understanding of environmental issues and the critical role we all play in protecting our water and land (the river & its watershed).   

• This activity helps students better understand the complex relationships between human communities and the watersheds they reside in, with all the varieties of land uses: from agriculture, to urban areas, to parks & protected lands, to suburban developments.  

• To introduce this collaborative artistic mapping activity to students, start by discussing the importance of aquatic ecosystems & the local water resources that they rely on in their communities.  Can they identify the major streams or rivers in their watershed?  Can they name any ways these water resources are used, or what makes them important?  Have students brainstorm ideas about how fresh water streams & rivers are used by the communities they flow through.  Their drawings will capture many of these great ideas, and bring to life the bigger picture when all the puzzle pieces are connected into one flowing river!   

• In addition to their ecological importance, rivers like the Hudson & Delaware are used by people for many purposes:

~  The transportation of goods and people

~  Fisheries & human food supplies (this may only be true historically, depending on the context)

~  Drinking water supply

~  A wide range of recreational opportunities, such as swimming, fishing, boating, and connecting with nature

~  Industrial uses

~  Wildlife habitat

• May we continue to conserve, protect, and enjoy our beautiful, life-giving rivers!

• Participants collaborate to create this artistic river map, with 26 unique puzzle piece templates that continuously flow, so you can use this activity with a group of any size (use an even number of total cards since the puzzle is pieced together as sets of 2).  Pieces #25-26/Y-Z line up with #1-2/A-B

• Print the cards on card stock to avoid them being flimsy - OR- see instructions for drawing your own puzzle pieces if you prefer not to print.

• Ideally paper size should be 8 1/2" x 11" with pieces printed borderless, stacked on the other in portrait mode. There may be a margin/border that will need to be trimmed along the blue edges.

• Each puzzle may be numbered/lettered in pencil on the back for ordered puzzle assembly, #1 - 26/A - Z.  

• Each participant gets 1 printed card to design and color.

• The look of the finished puzzle is "hand-drawn map" - from a birds-eye view with no sky; the blue printed on the card is the flowing river and the white is the blank land.

• Please note the orientation of each piece and the puzzle as a whole must be taken into account so the participants' drawings are oriented the same way once the puzzle is assembled; also consider how the finished mural will be displayed - horizontally or vertically along a wall.

• The finished product looks best if the entire card gets colored (covering all the white background to look like land); things happening in or on the water can be colored on top of the printed blue.

• Colored pencils and crayons are best; markers smudge. 

• Lesson can begin with background discussion and brainstorming ideas as a group (see "What are we learning?" section)

• Drawings may include a variety of land uses & landforms: farms, forests, parks, homes, animal habitats, neighborhoods, businesses, beaches, docks, roads, parking lots, bridges, marinas, schools, industries - and more!

• A great activity to follow a more in-depth lesson about fresh water resources (particularly rivers) and their watersheds

• Group discussion and brainstorming

• Great opportunity for creative expression and focused individual work 

• Each students can design their own puzzle piece, but the finished project brings the whole group's work together into an art piece to display

• Good lesson for learning about other related topics: geography, mapping, land use, habitats, different types of communities, local history, etc