Water: A Whole School Expedition
Reprinted from Journeys Through Our Classrooms
Ron Berger, Kendall-Hunt Publishing, Dubuque, Iowa 1996Ron Berger describes a yearlong interdisciplinary expedition on the theme of water which involves his entire elementary school and the surrounding community. Students from kindergarten through sixth grade study water as a resource, along with its physical properties and biology. The aesthetic dimensions of water-its presence in literature, music, song, poetry, and painting -- provide a common thread that runs through the students' investigations. Children draw upon the talents and interests of town residents, local experts, and a college professor and his class to help them with their research. As a culminating study, students tested the town's drinking water for lead and sodium contamination. The students keep the community and the local paper apprised of their findings. But as the testing progresses, Berger and his colleagues begin wondering if they have a public health crisis on their hands.
In my school, curriculum and instruction are centered in thematic studies. Teachers design original units to use with their classrooms, and these units represent long-term expeditions into different worlds of knowledge. Every once in a while the staff feels brave enough, or crazy enough, to attempt a whole school expedition. The most vast and ambitious of these was a yearlong whole school journey into the theme of water. For an entire year, kindergarten through sixth-grade students were immersed, so to speak, in literary, artistic, mathematical, ecological, political, athletic, scientific, and playful aspects of this broad topic.
My fear in trying to recreate this study to share with others was that my fondness for metaphor and my terrible sense of humor would join forces against my will to insert puns into every sentence. I found myself describing students as "plunging into studies" or "getting their feet wet" with activities. I myself have been "wading" through data in preparing this account, "filtering out" the important issues. In describing the most intense moments of this study, when it sank in that the research of students could uncover serious health hazards for town citizens, creating a panic for families, I remembered how often we felt that we were "over our heads" in taking on this project. I've tried valiantly to cleanse my language of this affliction. Kidding aside, this process made clear to me the ubiquitous and almost archetypal presence of water images in our language and in our thinking.
While it's important to explain the study's goals, activities, scope, and sequence, I also want to convey some of its spirit and life. A goal such as "investigation of aquatic reptiles" is less vivid than my memory of two sixth-grade girls stalking a large water snake through a weedy swamp, waist-deep in muck and water, then hitting an unexpected underwater hole and disappearing below the surface of the water.
I think of first graders, digging channels in the sand, struggling with giant buckets of water to begin the life of a stream. I think of third- and fourth-grade students on a rowboat out in the middle of a town lake, carefully lowering into the water a clever homemade water-sampling contraption built of rope, hardware, duct tape, cork, rocks, a wine jug, and a thermometer. More than any thing, I think of the excitement and fear in the classroom as my students compiled and reported data from town well samples. The children, teachers, town families, the town board of health, and the local newspapers were awaiting these results with impatience and apprehension. But everything was in the children's hands, and there was no rushing them. With the lives and health of real people at stake, the students refused to post anything until it had been checked and rechecked. They were as terrified of making a mistake as we were of uncovering a crisis. This was serious business!
Let me put this study in context. I teach sixth grade in a rural public school in western Massachusetts. It's a small school in the woods, financially poor but rich with ideas and energy. At the time of this study we had about 140 students and seven teachers. We are privileged in having a small, creative staff who respect and enjoy each other. We are anything but privileged in the physical and financial conditions of our work.
Every few years we muster up the courage to organize a theme of study for the entire school. As with many phenomena in life (childbirth is an example used by some mothers), after a few years we seem to remember the good parts of these whole school extravaganzas and forget the degree of pain, problems, and mess. Even though every teacher on our staff has individual talent and dedication in developing his or her own classroom themes, schoolwide themes require more time and a much higher degree of coordination. With time, though, the memories of headaches fade and the staff (at least the more optimistic or senile among us) grows nostalgic for that wonderful celebration of learning, discovery, and sharing that permeates the school during such an adventure.
The impetus for choosing water as our topic of study was an interesting one. One of our staff, third- and fourth-grade teacher Ken Lindsay, took a year's leave of absence from school to pursue a number of educational projects. During this year, the town where he lived became embroiled in a frightening water contamination crisis: private wells had become contaminated with dangerous pesticides from agricultural sources. Ken jumped into a leadership role in the citizens' group investigating this crisis, fighting for well testing and emergency water distribution. (Several years later these efforts finally paid off. The town agreed to build a $4 million water system, partially funded by the state, to replace half its delivery system for private wells.) Needless to say, Ken got little else done that year. Ken returned to school the next year with a new expertise and sensitivity concerning water as a resource for life. The rest of the staff, having had our own wells tested during that panic year, had been awakened also. We felt a responsibility to impress upon children the importance of this issue. And so, when discussions began in January about a possible topic for our school study next year, water rose quickly to the top of the list.
Planning
The staff began that February and March with
brainstorming sessions of all the possible topics,
activities, and concepts that could fall under the
umbrella of water studies. And, as with my problem
with wet metaphors, we found the topics to be almost
endless. Our first session yielded about one hundred
ideas and resources. From here, the planning began. I
was lucky enough to work with Ken on the smaller
staff committee entrusted with shaping this vast list
into something manageable.
Ken and I wrote a small grant proposal, seeking state funds, and were lucky enough to receive a $3,000 grant for staff development around this theme. This money had a great impact on our planning, as it allowed us to hire experts to teach the staff, and fund educational activities for staff members.
The greatest resource a school has when it embarks on a learning expedition is the creativity, energy, and cooperative spirit of the staff. This is a resource, like water, that is often taken for granted: it is drawn upon constantly, with little effort to renew and refresh it. Our project committee worked with the staff to design a spectrum of staff activities to address this. These activities included trips: a boat trip down the Connecticut River with an expert guide, a canoe trip for staff and families, and even a whale watch off the coast of Massachusetts.
These activities were intended to accomplish three things: first, to inspire the staff-to build interest, enjoyment, cooperation, and spirit in a watery world; second, to provide diverse forums for staff to plan and work together in small groups or as a whole group, free from school pressures; and third, to provide training experiences for the staff in different scientific and ecological aspects of water so that we would have a base of knowledge for beginning.
Whenever possible, we included the full school staff, not just the teachers; the cafeteria manager, secretary, custodian, and all support staff were invited to our boat trips, whale watch, and lake studies. In practice, the activities did not always focus on a single goal, such as morale, science education, or planning time. Many events addressed all these goals at once.
Ken and I wrote a small grant proposal, seeking state funds, and were lucky enough to receive a $3,000 grant for staff development around this theme. This money had a great impact on our planning, as it allowed us to hire experts to teach the staff, and fund educational activities for staff members.
The greatest resource a school has when it embarks on a learning expedition is the creativity, energy, and cooperative spirit of the staff. This is a resource, like water, that is often taken for granted: it is drawn upon constantly, with little effort to renew and refresh it. Our project committee worked with the staff to design a spectrum of staff activities to address this. These activities included trips: a boat trip down the Connecticut River with an expert guide, a canoe trip for staff and families, and even a whale watch off the coast of Massachusetts.
These activities were intended to accomplish three things: first, to inspire the staff-to build interest, enjoyment, cooperation, and spirit in a watery world; second, to provide diverse forums for staff to plan and work together in small groups or as a whole group, free from school pressures; and third, to provide training experiences for the staff in different scientific and ecological aspects of water so that we would have a base of knowledge for beginning.
Whenever possible, we included the full school staff, not just the teachers; the cafeteria manager, secretary, custodian, and all support staff were invited to our boat trips, whale watch, and lake studies. In practice, the activities did not always focus on a single goal, such as morale, science education, or planning time. Many events addressed all these goals at once.
The Study Begins
We loosely divided the water study into three phases.
The fall would focus largely on water as a resource,
the winter would focus on the physical properties of
water, and the spring on the biology of bodies of
water. It was difficult to keep to these distinctions
once we got going (when you've got three children out
in a rowboat, it's hard to tell them to ignore the
fish and think only about water temperature). The
phases were helpful in organizing the major emphasis
of our investigations in the classrooms and the
school. The aesthetic aspects of water-watercolor
painting, the literature of water and the sea, water
poetry and stories, whaling ballads and water songs,
sand castles, and so forth-were a thread that ran
through all phases in myriad ways.
Field trips and visits by local experts have always been key to our classroom thematic studies. Not only do they connect the children to the real-life aspects of their work, but they inspire the students to look at resources-whether museums, libraries, people, or ponds-with the respect and excitement that come to newly emerging experts. We generally bring the students on trips or invite experts into the classroom after students have gained a foundation of knowledge and investment in the topic. As the culmination of a study, these events can be wonderful, as students already have the deep background and interest to be polite, absorbed, and excited guests or hosts. Because they are striving to become experts themselves, they often treat expert guests with a hero's welcome.
We used a variety of trips and presentations with children, with single classes, pairs of classes, or the whole school. We visited the New England Aquarium, local fish hatcheries, a fish ladder for salmon and shad on the Connecticut River, a whale watch in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and college laboratories, and took countless trips to local lakes, ponds, streams, bogs, and swamps. The guest experts spanned a wide range, from geologists to parents who worked in fisheries to a folk singer who taught us water songs.
We have a small lake in our town, Lake Wyola, which became a center for our studies. In bathing suits or boots, with field nets, ropes, clipboards, buckets, bottles, bags, and thermometers, students ventured around, in, and on top of the lake. Some of this was done by individual classes. The third and fourth graders went door to door around the lake with a survey for lake dwellers on how they used the lake. They also measured water temperature and acidity in the lake from the shore and from boats, looking for stratified layers and patterns of water movement, and also examined its surrounding streams and swamps. They monitored pH as an indicator of the lake's health for sustaining wildlife. The fifth grade studied fish populations through observation of nests and by using giant seining nets to collect specimens. The sixth grade studied the glacial formation of the lake and its geology, prepared a depth map of the lake through the use of a motorboat with a sonar "fish finder" instrument, and collected and studied reptiles, amphibians, insects, and all sorts of large and small invertebrates.
In addition to these classroom studies, there were two whole school "Wyola Days," one in September and one in June. Everyone -- children, teachers, custodian, cook, parents, and principal -- got wet on these days. On Wyola Days, students from the kindergarten, first- and second-grade classes joined in with their own projects -- sailing homemade yachts, studying river and stream movement, building sand castles, and painting scenes -- while the third through sixth graders continued their various water studies. The students also delved into local history and lore. Two older town residents, "the keeper of the dam" (an official town post, which pays five dollars a year) and the owner of "the pay beach" and campground, met with students and teachers to give some background on the lake over the years. These Shutesbury elders were kind enough to repeat their reminiscences and lessons to different groups of students throughout the day. On this day, the staff learned as much as the children. We included physical science studies of water from many sources; the most significant were units prepared by the wonderful Elementary School Science program. We used unit guides, which were often accompanied by kits that we could purchase or borrow, at many grade levels. All contained hands-on experimental work and lessons in recording and interpreting data. The lower grades used units in Sink or Float and Clay Boats; the middle grades, Color Solutions; and the upper grades, Kitchen Physics and Stream Tables. A workshop by a local educator/naturalist prepared all teachers to investigate the physics of soap bubbles with their classes, and a workshop by a science teacher equipped the upper-grade teachers to investigate acids and bases with their classes through preparing a homemade litmus indicator, a solution of red cabbage juice.
Biological studies of whales, fish, aquatic reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates occurred at different levels. These classroom units ranged from a few weeks in length to a few months. A local educator/naturalist not only taught staff and children techniques to collect and identify pond and stream life, but also loaned the school equipment to do so, including a projection microscope that turned barely visible specks in pond water into monsterlike creatures on the classroom wall. Classrooms were overflowing with aquatic life; we purchased ten-gallon aquariums in great number, as well as buckets and plastic trays. Fish eggs, frog eggs, salamanders, insect larvae, diving beetles, perch, and small-mouth bass consumed our days. The bubbling sound of air pumps was a constant drone. That spring the school was filled with paintings, drawings, models, poems, and stories of whales, fish, and dragonflies (in my classroom, even water fleas and leeches).
We searched for literature that embraced watery topics, from sailors and the sea to rivers, rain, snow, ice, fish, whales, and turtles. Teachers and students read books aloud at all levels-from Swimmy, by Leo Lionni, to Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. Some books were used in reading group studies. In addition to our classroom work, our art specialist and music specialist wove watery themes into their work with classes, and our spring school concert was a celebration of water.
Much of the water project work was interdisciplinary, to the extent that it would be impossible to categorize as science, art, math, or language studies; it was all at once. When first- and second-grade students studied fish, they had live fish on every table in the classroom. Children counted them, observed their habits, drew pictures of them, kept journals of their life cycles, created safe experiments for them, and wrote poems and stories about them. These students read fictional and nonfictional stories about fish. Fish words became their vocabulary and spelling challenges. They did watercolor paintings of fish, tempera paintings of fish, tissue paper collages of fish, collages of crayon and ink-stamped fish, and stuffed fish models. They observed fish in the classroom, fish in hatcheries, fish at an aquarium, and fish in local ponds and streams. Students probably couldn't have told you what was science and what was art, but they could have told you an awful lot about fish.
Field trips and visits by local experts have always been key to our classroom thematic studies. Not only do they connect the children to the real-life aspects of their work, but they inspire the students to look at resources-whether museums, libraries, people, or ponds-with the respect and excitement that come to newly emerging experts. We generally bring the students on trips or invite experts into the classroom after students have gained a foundation of knowledge and investment in the topic. As the culmination of a study, these events can be wonderful, as students already have the deep background and interest to be polite, absorbed, and excited guests or hosts. Because they are striving to become experts themselves, they often treat expert guests with a hero's welcome.
We used a variety of trips and presentations with children, with single classes, pairs of classes, or the whole school. We visited the New England Aquarium, local fish hatcheries, a fish ladder for salmon and shad on the Connecticut River, a whale watch in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and college laboratories, and took countless trips to local lakes, ponds, streams, bogs, and swamps. The guest experts spanned a wide range, from geologists to parents who worked in fisheries to a folk singer who taught us water songs.
We have a small lake in our town, Lake Wyola, which became a center for our studies. In bathing suits or boots, with field nets, ropes, clipboards, buckets, bottles, bags, and thermometers, students ventured around, in, and on top of the lake. Some of this was done by individual classes. The third and fourth graders went door to door around the lake with a survey for lake dwellers on how they used the lake. They also measured water temperature and acidity in the lake from the shore and from boats, looking for stratified layers and patterns of water movement, and also examined its surrounding streams and swamps. They monitored pH as an indicator of the lake's health for sustaining wildlife. The fifth grade studied fish populations through observation of nests and by using giant seining nets to collect specimens. The sixth grade studied the glacial formation of the lake and its geology, prepared a depth map of the lake through the use of a motorboat with a sonar "fish finder" instrument, and collected and studied reptiles, amphibians, insects, and all sorts of large and small invertebrates.
In addition to these classroom studies, there were two whole school "Wyola Days," one in September and one in June. Everyone -- children, teachers, custodian, cook, parents, and principal -- got wet on these days. On Wyola Days, students from the kindergarten, first- and second-grade classes joined in with their own projects -- sailing homemade yachts, studying river and stream movement, building sand castles, and painting scenes -- while the third through sixth graders continued their various water studies. The students also delved into local history and lore. Two older town residents, "the keeper of the dam" (an official town post, which pays five dollars a year) and the owner of "the pay beach" and campground, met with students and teachers to give some background on the lake over the years. These Shutesbury elders were kind enough to repeat their reminiscences and lessons to different groups of students throughout the day. On this day, the staff learned as much as the children. We included physical science studies of water from many sources; the most significant were units prepared by the wonderful Elementary School Science program. We used unit guides, which were often accompanied by kits that we could purchase or borrow, at many grade levels. All contained hands-on experimental work and lessons in recording and interpreting data. The lower grades used units in Sink or Float and Clay Boats; the middle grades, Color Solutions; and the upper grades, Kitchen Physics and Stream Tables. A workshop by a local educator/naturalist prepared all teachers to investigate the physics of soap bubbles with their classes, and a workshop by a science teacher equipped the upper-grade teachers to investigate acids and bases with their classes through preparing a homemade litmus indicator, a solution of red cabbage juice.
Biological studies of whales, fish, aquatic reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates occurred at different levels. These classroom units ranged from a few weeks in length to a few months. A local educator/naturalist not only taught staff and children techniques to collect and identify pond and stream life, but also loaned the school equipment to do so, including a projection microscope that turned barely visible specks in pond water into monsterlike creatures on the classroom wall. Classrooms were overflowing with aquatic life; we purchased ten-gallon aquariums in great number, as well as buckets and plastic trays. Fish eggs, frog eggs, salamanders, insect larvae, diving beetles, perch, and small-mouth bass consumed our days. The bubbling sound of air pumps was a constant drone. That spring the school was filled with paintings, drawings, models, poems, and stories of whales, fish, and dragonflies (in my classroom, even water fleas and leeches).
We searched for literature that embraced watery topics, from sailors and the sea to rivers, rain, snow, ice, fish, whales, and turtles. Teachers and students read books aloud at all levels-from Swimmy, by Leo Lionni, to Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. Some books were used in reading group studies. In addition to our classroom work, our art specialist and music specialist wove watery themes into their work with classes, and our spring school concert was a celebration of water.
Much of the water project work was interdisciplinary, to the extent that it would be impossible to categorize as science, art, math, or language studies; it was all at once. When first- and second-grade students studied fish, they had live fish on every table in the classroom. Children counted them, observed their habits, drew pictures of them, kept journals of their life cycles, created safe experiments for them, and wrote poems and stories about them. These students read fictional and nonfictional stories about fish. Fish words became their vocabulary and spelling challenges. They did watercolor paintings of fish, tempera paintings of fish, tissue paper collages of fish, collages of crayon and ink-stamped fish, and stuffed fish models. They observed fish in the classroom, fish in hatcheries, fish at an aquarium, and fish in local ponds and streams. Students probably couldn't have told you what was science and what was art, but they could have told you an awful lot about fish.
Fit to Drink
We began the year with a focus on water as a
resource. Though drinking water may seem like a less
compelling subject for children than water snakes or
whales, it emerged as the most powerful and
passionately pursued topic of the year. Few citizens,
child or adult, appreciate the precious resource of
clean drinking water that we enjoy in this country.
Only in severe water shortages or contamination
crises do we begin to see what we usually take for
granted. As a staff, we felt it was important to
foster an ecological consciousness in our students
about water protection and conservation-not through
lectures but through real work.
For an adult, raw statistics themselves can be jolting. The average American directly uses about 160 gallons of water per day and indirectly uses about 1,800 gallons, compared with an average of 12 gallons per day for persons in less developed nations. While about 40 percent of the world is without clean, safe drinking water, we use about 60 gallons of clean water to wash a load of our clothes, and about 25,000 gallons of clean water to produce one pound of beef for human consumption.
These kinds of statistics are not always real for children. We needed other strategies to introduce them to the notion of water conservation and protection. A first-grade teacher had each child keep a water log. In school and at home, students kept track of how many times water was used, for drinking, cleaning, flushing toilets, watering the lawn, or for any other purpose. They got parental help when needed, and parents were encouraged to join the study. For a limited time, this teacher allowed students to use water only with a "water ticket," so that they could experience what the world would be like with water rationing. Students learned how much water can be wasted from a leaky faucet by doing experiments with slow drips from the classroom sink. Even if the figure of 200 million gallons, which is the estimated amount of water lost each day in New York City by leaky faucets and toilets, is too large a number for first graders to grasp, they could see how drips add up.
Of all the projects and work accomplished during that year, the most significant was our testing of the drinking water in town. In our county, almost all water is drawn from private wells; town water systems do not exist in most communities. Our own town is entirely served by private wells; our school has its own well. New homes, and of course the school, must test their water and prove to the town board of health that it is fit and drinkable. This requirement does not apply to existing homes, and so most of the townspeople do not really know the quality and safety of the water they drink at home, unless they've been willing to pay for expensive tests. Even homes that have been tested are not necessarily safe, as conditions may have changed since the initial test.
As far as we knew, no town with private wells had received a thorough testing of its water. It's an expensive process, and testing is done by the state only in times and specific sites of crisis. We had an opportunity, using students and families, to test the entire town of Shutesbury-not every home, but a sampling of homes spread across every part of town. If there were patterns of contamination or concern, there was a good chance we would catch them.
We established a partnership with an ecology class at Hampshire College in Amherst. Professor John Reid offered to make his laboratory and students available to help us. We could not do a full battery of water tests, due to our limitations of equipment and expertise, so we decided to focus on two areas of particular concern for people in town: lead pollution and sodium pollution.
Lead pollution in drinking water is often caused by the lead solder in the joints of metal pipes leaching into the water supply. Even infinitesimal amounts of lead, fifty parts per billion, represent a serious danger. The more acidic the water, the greater the chance of contamination. With our wells being filled by increasingly acidic rain, many people were getting nervous. Third- and fourth-grade pH readings of local streams and pond confirmed our fears that our town's water was more acidic than it should be. Sodium pollution can be caused either by natural ground salts, or when the salt that is poured onto icy roads in winter leaches into the soil and ground water. Some areas in town, particularly homes at the base of steep hills, seemed to have good cause for worry. We resolved to test for sodium and lead content, and also to check the acidity of water samples.
We began by holding whole school assemblies. We explained the project, and answered questions. We described artesian wells-how the are dug, why they work, and how they can become endangered. We sent a letter home to each family, inviting them to participate if they felt comfortable doing so. No family refused, and many were anxious to begin. Attached to the letter was a request that each student, or student-parent team draw a rough map of the location of their well. We asked them to provide an aerial view of the home, road, and well, with approximate distances and slopes indicated. This would enable us to look for a correlation between sodium content and well placement, in case road salt was running down hill into a home's water supply.
John Reid provided sterile sample bottles, two for every child and staff member at the school, and a pile of extras for mistakes. First, Reid taught the sixth-grade students the proper method of drawing water samples. Th procedure had to be followed exactly to ensure accuracy. Then the sixth graders held an assembly for the entire school and gave a lesson in proper sampling techniques. They distributed sample kits containing bottles and instructions to every child, kindergarten on up. Students were instructed to take the samples themselves, or to have a parent help. Any mistakes in the procedure, even a single toilet flush during the night, had to be recorded and turned in with the samples, as it might affect the outcome.
At this point, word of the study had gotten around town. The town board of health was in touch; not only were board members anxious to hear the results, but some of them asked if they could have their own wells tested. Requests for tests came from all over -- relatives and friends of staff, relatives of students, neighbors of students -- everyone wanted their wells tested.
When the samples came in, small groups of fifth- and sixth-grade students brought them down to the Hampshire College laboratory, driven by parent volunteers. In the lab, the fifth and sixth graders were taught to calibrate and run the analysis machines by the college students. While the young students were running the machines under the supervision of the older students, a separate team of fifth and sixth graders videotaped the process with the school's camcorder. Phase I of this project, the analysis of samples, was completed in a few days. Fifth and sixth graders then directed an assembly for the whole school where they explained the process to the students and the school staff, using the videotape as part of the lesson. Our next task was to analyze the data -- enter the results on town maps, arrange and graph the data to look for trends, and assess the degree of the problem in our town.
Meanwhile, some of us on the staff were starting to panic. Initially, this project seemed like both a great learning experience and a public service; it was perfect. Now the gravity of the project began to sink in. What if some family wells had lead content high enough to present a real danger? Who was going to break the news to the family? If students were in charge of all the data, there was no way to keep such a finding secret, or even guarded. What if property values in town were imperiled by our findings? Could we even trust our findings? Were we liable for any problems we created? We called our town lawyer to discuss these issues.
The students, meanwhile, were buried under reams of computer printouts, working in teams to organize and present the data. Lists and charts were created. The third and fourth grades had drafted an extraordinary town map in the school library to record their water acidity findings, a map that took up an entire wall. We marked the home of every student in the school on the map, and entered the data from the well next to the home. This enabled us to look for neighborhood patterns.
Reporters were coming to the school regularly during this period to get updates on the results. Staff members spoke to them, but told them frankly that if they wanted an appraisal of the data so far they would have to talk to the students. Students were analyzing and interpreting the data; they knew more than staff did at that point. Students even talked on the phone with reporters to give updates.
Luckily for us and for everyone in town, no samples revealed levels of lead or sodium that were clearly dangerous. Some samples were slightly higher than recommended levels, and we requested more samples from these homes so we could retest them. There was a wide range of levels of both contaminants in the samples, and our job now was to try to find patterns and relationships in the data.
John Reid taught the sixth-grade students methods of plotting the data on graphs to examine correlations. We examined the following correlations in graphic form: pH to sodium, well depth to sodium, distance from road to sodium, pH to lead, and sodium to lead. We also examined the relationship of the pH of the first water sample taken in the morning to the second sample, taken after the system had been thoroughly flushed out.
Our findings were interesting, and not what we bad predicted. We found no correlation between well depth or placement and sodium levels. There was no evidence that road salt was affecting wells in a substantial manner. Lead levels were acceptable throughout town, but were higher in wells where the water was more acidic. Also, in about a third of the wells, the second water sample was significantly more acidic than the first, indicating that the water had been buffered by sitting in the pipes overnight. Had lead levels been high, this would have suggested that one should run the water in the morning for a few minutes before using any to drink.
These findings were relayed to the school by the students who had prepared the graphs. The students used chart-size versions of these graphs in an assembly to explain to the school their findings, and also to teach younger students how to read such graphs. The findings were also shared with the community and, through newspapers, with neighboring towns. As the use of road salt was a controversial issue throughout the region, our findings held real significance for towns in our area.
Our student scientists felt on top of the world. The work they had accomplished was not only accurate, clear, and elegantly portrayed, but it was important. Not important school work, but important work in the real world. To this day, I'm not sure that any community in the state has more accurate data on possible road salt contamination of wells than these studies prepared by elementary students for the town of Shutesbury. Of course, students wanted to extend and continue the testing work, but the staff declined. We felt as if we had ulcers by now, and thought that some work that was a little less vital would suit us just fine for a while.
Our Shutesbury water study officially ended on a bright, sunny day in June, our second Wyola Day. We loaded into cars -- parents, students, and staff -- and headed to the lake for a day of research and fun. On this day, the research and projects of students were combined with some less serious lake activities: swimming, boating, volleyball, sand castles, and a whole school picnic. In the same way that the morale and spirit of the staff was nurtured with workshops, trips, and events during this water study, we felt that the morale and spirit of the whole school wouldn't be hurt by a little water fun. What kind of water expedition would it be without bathing suits and splash fights?
For an adult, raw statistics themselves can be jolting. The average American directly uses about 160 gallons of water per day and indirectly uses about 1,800 gallons, compared with an average of 12 gallons per day for persons in less developed nations. While about 40 percent of the world is without clean, safe drinking water, we use about 60 gallons of clean water to wash a load of our clothes, and about 25,000 gallons of clean water to produce one pound of beef for human consumption.
These kinds of statistics are not always real for children. We needed other strategies to introduce them to the notion of water conservation and protection. A first-grade teacher had each child keep a water log. In school and at home, students kept track of how many times water was used, for drinking, cleaning, flushing toilets, watering the lawn, or for any other purpose. They got parental help when needed, and parents were encouraged to join the study. For a limited time, this teacher allowed students to use water only with a "water ticket," so that they could experience what the world would be like with water rationing. Students learned how much water can be wasted from a leaky faucet by doing experiments with slow drips from the classroom sink. Even if the figure of 200 million gallons, which is the estimated amount of water lost each day in New York City by leaky faucets and toilets, is too large a number for first graders to grasp, they could see how drips add up.
Of all the projects and work accomplished during that year, the most significant was our testing of the drinking water in town. In our county, almost all water is drawn from private wells; town water systems do not exist in most communities. Our own town is entirely served by private wells; our school has its own well. New homes, and of course the school, must test their water and prove to the town board of health that it is fit and drinkable. This requirement does not apply to existing homes, and so most of the townspeople do not really know the quality and safety of the water they drink at home, unless they've been willing to pay for expensive tests. Even homes that have been tested are not necessarily safe, as conditions may have changed since the initial test.
As far as we knew, no town with private wells had received a thorough testing of its water. It's an expensive process, and testing is done by the state only in times and specific sites of crisis. We had an opportunity, using students and families, to test the entire town of Shutesbury-not every home, but a sampling of homes spread across every part of town. If there were patterns of contamination or concern, there was a good chance we would catch them.
We established a partnership with an ecology class at Hampshire College in Amherst. Professor John Reid offered to make his laboratory and students available to help us. We could not do a full battery of water tests, due to our limitations of equipment and expertise, so we decided to focus on two areas of particular concern for people in town: lead pollution and sodium pollution.
Lead pollution in drinking water is often caused by the lead solder in the joints of metal pipes leaching into the water supply. Even infinitesimal amounts of lead, fifty parts per billion, represent a serious danger. The more acidic the water, the greater the chance of contamination. With our wells being filled by increasingly acidic rain, many people were getting nervous. Third- and fourth-grade pH readings of local streams and pond confirmed our fears that our town's water was more acidic than it should be. Sodium pollution can be caused either by natural ground salts, or when the salt that is poured onto icy roads in winter leaches into the soil and ground water. Some areas in town, particularly homes at the base of steep hills, seemed to have good cause for worry. We resolved to test for sodium and lead content, and also to check the acidity of water samples.
We began by holding whole school assemblies. We explained the project, and answered questions. We described artesian wells-how the are dug, why they work, and how they can become endangered. We sent a letter home to each family, inviting them to participate if they felt comfortable doing so. No family refused, and many were anxious to begin. Attached to the letter was a request that each student, or student-parent team draw a rough map of the location of their well. We asked them to provide an aerial view of the home, road, and well, with approximate distances and slopes indicated. This would enable us to look for a correlation between sodium content and well placement, in case road salt was running down hill into a home's water supply.
John Reid provided sterile sample bottles, two for every child and staff member at the school, and a pile of extras for mistakes. First, Reid taught the sixth-grade students the proper method of drawing water samples. Th procedure had to be followed exactly to ensure accuracy. Then the sixth graders held an assembly for the entire school and gave a lesson in proper sampling techniques. They distributed sample kits containing bottles and instructions to every child, kindergarten on up. Students were instructed to take the samples themselves, or to have a parent help. Any mistakes in the procedure, even a single toilet flush during the night, had to be recorded and turned in with the samples, as it might affect the outcome.
At this point, word of the study had gotten around town. The town board of health was in touch; not only were board members anxious to hear the results, but some of them asked if they could have their own wells tested. Requests for tests came from all over -- relatives and friends of staff, relatives of students, neighbors of students -- everyone wanted their wells tested.
When the samples came in, small groups of fifth- and sixth-grade students brought them down to the Hampshire College laboratory, driven by parent volunteers. In the lab, the fifth and sixth graders were taught to calibrate and run the analysis machines by the college students. While the young students were running the machines under the supervision of the older students, a separate team of fifth and sixth graders videotaped the process with the school's camcorder. Phase I of this project, the analysis of samples, was completed in a few days. Fifth and sixth graders then directed an assembly for the whole school where they explained the process to the students and the school staff, using the videotape as part of the lesson. Our next task was to analyze the data -- enter the results on town maps, arrange and graph the data to look for trends, and assess the degree of the problem in our town.
Meanwhile, some of us on the staff were starting to panic. Initially, this project seemed like both a great learning experience and a public service; it was perfect. Now the gravity of the project began to sink in. What if some family wells had lead content high enough to present a real danger? Who was going to break the news to the family? If students were in charge of all the data, there was no way to keep such a finding secret, or even guarded. What if property values in town were imperiled by our findings? Could we even trust our findings? Were we liable for any problems we created? We called our town lawyer to discuss these issues.
The students, meanwhile, were buried under reams of computer printouts, working in teams to organize and present the data. Lists and charts were created. The third and fourth grades had drafted an extraordinary town map in the school library to record their water acidity findings, a map that took up an entire wall. We marked the home of every student in the school on the map, and entered the data from the well next to the home. This enabled us to look for neighborhood patterns.
Reporters were coming to the school regularly during this period to get updates on the results. Staff members spoke to them, but told them frankly that if they wanted an appraisal of the data so far they would have to talk to the students. Students were analyzing and interpreting the data; they knew more than staff did at that point. Students even talked on the phone with reporters to give updates.
Luckily for us and for everyone in town, no samples revealed levels of lead or sodium that were clearly dangerous. Some samples were slightly higher than recommended levels, and we requested more samples from these homes so we could retest them. There was a wide range of levels of both contaminants in the samples, and our job now was to try to find patterns and relationships in the data.
John Reid taught the sixth-grade students methods of plotting the data on graphs to examine correlations. We examined the following correlations in graphic form: pH to sodium, well depth to sodium, distance from road to sodium, pH to lead, and sodium to lead. We also examined the relationship of the pH of the first water sample taken in the morning to the second sample, taken after the system had been thoroughly flushed out.
Our findings were interesting, and not what we bad predicted. We found no correlation between well depth or placement and sodium levels. There was no evidence that road salt was affecting wells in a substantial manner. Lead levels were acceptable throughout town, but were higher in wells where the water was more acidic. Also, in about a third of the wells, the second water sample was significantly more acidic than the first, indicating that the water had been buffered by sitting in the pipes overnight. Had lead levels been high, this would have suggested that one should run the water in the morning for a few minutes before using any to drink.
These findings were relayed to the school by the students who had prepared the graphs. The students used chart-size versions of these graphs in an assembly to explain to the school their findings, and also to teach younger students how to read such graphs. The findings were also shared with the community and, through newspapers, with neighboring towns. As the use of road salt was a controversial issue throughout the region, our findings held real significance for towns in our area.
Our student scientists felt on top of the world. The work they had accomplished was not only accurate, clear, and elegantly portrayed, but it was important. Not important school work, but important work in the real world. To this day, I'm not sure that any community in the state has more accurate data on possible road salt contamination of wells than these studies prepared by elementary students for the town of Shutesbury. Of course, students wanted to extend and continue the testing work, but the staff declined. We felt as if we had ulcers by now, and thought that some work that was a little less vital would suit us just fine for a while.
Our Shutesbury water study officially ended on a bright, sunny day in June, our second Wyola Day. We loaded into cars -- parents, students, and staff -- and headed to the lake for a day of research and fun. On this day, the research and projects of students were combined with some less serious lake activities: swimming, boating, volleyball, sand castles, and a whole school picnic. In the same way that the morale and spirit of the staff was nurtured with workshops, trips, and events during this water study, we felt that the morale and spirit of the whole school wouldn't be hurt by a little water fun. What kind of water expedition would it be without bathing suits and splash fights?
