What is a best education practice? ...a program or practice that has been clearly defined, refined through repeated delivery and supported by a substantial body of research. Anthony Fedler, Defining Best Practices in Boating, Fishing, and Stewardship Education, July 2001

One goal of the Water Outreach Education Web site is to facilitate access to education techniques that water professionals can be confident are the best practices for educating specific audiences. To find out whether an education technique is a best practice, we apply the technique and study the outcome using research methodologies. A best practice is one that is shown to be equally effective in multiple cases with like audiences.

To the extent that research-based information is available, advice on this Web site provides best practices. Where research-based information is not available, we provide case studies and the best available information, or good practices. Good practices are widely established practices, applied by experienced educators, but which may not have been subjected to researched comparisons.

Essential BEPs integrate primary recommendations and group according to typical educator challenges. If you want to use BEPs but aren't sure where to begin, try the BEP Decision Tree. BEP Research provides more information, including key recommendations from each discipline, available by Knowledge Areas.

Knowledge Areas:

John Magnuson (right center) demonstrates a water sample measurement device to students in his Limnology class lab while aboard the Limnos research boat on Lake Mendota, Wisconsin.

Photo courtesy of Jeff Miller, UW-Madison University Communications.