My students are passionate about cleaning up local creeks. Our school is near a creek, a tributary of the famous Rogue River, but it is polluted by various sources. We have borrowed a stream monitoring kit from a local non-profit, but would like a school kit to use when we have to return this one.
We are the first and only environmental-science based magnet program in our rural County, and my students are always giving me great ideas for pursuing their interests.
When one of them brought in a sample from the creek in their backyard, a scientific inquiry was born. We have been monitoring local creeks for about 1 month, and the kids love it, but need to return the kit at the end of the month. We are presenting our findings at the Local Creek Symposium, and students want to continue their studies, and teach the other classes at our Elementary School how to do stream monitoring.
We are a K-5 program, so the "olders" really help the "youngers" to work with the materials and understand the results. We are supplying our data to regional non-profit stream monitoring studies and this information will be used to help direct local water-use policies.
All students have a natural and innate curiosity about the world around them, and empowering them to change the world inspires great lessons.
My Project
This stream monitoring kit will allow us to measure 10 separate qualities of our local creek, although the kit we currently borrow only measures 4. We will be able to include more students and other classes in our project by teaching them the techniques and allowing them to check out the school kit. We will be able to continue our stream monitoring and data collection past the end of the month when the borrowed kit must be returned.
We will have more sophisticated data to present at the Local Creeks Symposium, and better information to provide to local non-profits who are working on water quality issues. While the students love collecting data, they are even more excited about sharing their work with others, and knowing they can make a real difference in local policy-making.
The students want to increase their monitoring projects to include other points on the creek, doing comparative analysis of point source pollution, and this kit will allow over 100 samples of 10 different tests.
Understanding ecology is essential for students to face the challenges of environmental degradation.
While statistics and books can sometimes be overwhelming and cause pessimistic fatalism, hands-on environmental science can inspire service projects that make a real difference. The student projects can not only change kids' lives, but have a empowering impact on the whole community. When children present data about polluted streams, and inform their elders of ways to help, change is inevitable.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. Tourzan and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.