Learning about our waterways

By CARL E. FEATHER - Lifestyle Editor - cfeather@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon

May 18, 2008 09:59 pm

— Thanks to Jenna Dufour’s participation in the Waterways Symposium last week, the water bill at her home should show a slight decrease in months to come.
“We learned not to leave the water on while you brush your teeth,” said Dufour, a sixth grader from McKinsey Elementary School.
The symposium, held Wednesday and Thursday, culminated the After School Discovery Program’s year-long study of environmental science.
Four school districts participated in the Waterways program this year: Ashtabula Area City, Geneva, Grand Valley and Buckeye Local. Participation is voluntary and, despite the sponsoring program’s name, most of the learning usually done during school hours.
The program is open to Ashtabula County science teachers in grades three through six. Expenses are picked up by the Waterways Adventure sponsors, which this year included the Ashtabula Foundation, East Ashtabula Educational Assistance Corp. and Dominion Foundation.
Kent State University-Ashtabula provided at no charge the auditorium and classroom space to hold the symposium.
“They’ve been a good sponsor,” said Pat Seymour, executive director of After School Discovery.
This was the eighth year for the Waterways Adventure program, which has two goals: teach elementary students about environmental science and help them become good stewards of the environment.

Hands-on learning
The program kicks off in the fall with a training session for the teachers. They typically select a waterway to study and develop experiments that can be conducted by the students during field trips to the study site. Seymour says the program has used grants to purchase scientific equipment and guide books that can be used by the classes year after year.
At the symposium, students present the results of their projects to the other young scientists. Wednesday morning State Road Elementary students from Patti Thomas’ class presented a Power Point show about their work in the Ashtabula River Gulf. The students made plaster casts of animal footprints left in the mud, identified aquatic life, and measured the pH and oxygen levels of the water. They created charts of their research and shared them with the other schools.
Thomas said that by having students visit the habitat at various times of the year, the students became more aware of how dramatic an impact season has on the natural world. For example, in November about the best they could find was a hibernating crayfish, but in spring their nets brought up “tons of little eggs.”
The students also observed man’s impact on this environment, which “generated a lot of discussion about what we could do in that area,” Thomas said during the presentation.
Students from Grand Valley did their research on a stream that flows through the woodlands and meadow on school property. Michele Enriquez, a teacher at Thurgood Marshall Elementary, took her students to the Grand River at the Harpersfield Covered Bridge. The youngsters learned about both the history of the area and bridge as they studied the river and compared it to the Ashtabula River, which was the subject of their research last year. The students fell in love with the environment.
“I had a couple of the fifth-grade girls tell me ‘I don’t want to leave there,’” she said.
The emotional appeal of waterways was not forgotten as the students studied these environments. Thomas’ class composed poetry about their emotional responses to the river. And the keynote speaker of the symposium was replaced this year with performances by the the Inlet Dance Theatre Company.
Director Bill Wade said the company interprets common environments in the communities they perform. For example, one of their dances used red exercise balls to help the dancers express, in cartoon-like fashion, creatures that would be found around fresh water.
The balance of the symposium was devoted to break-out sessions where students could expand their knowledge of environmental science and the arts. Inlet Dance members helped the students learn dance moves while Becca Stowell of After School Discovery helped them create art with sticks and clay. In a biology classroom, Julie Wolin, a professor at Cleveland State, helped students use microscopes to discover the phytoplankton and zooplankton in a drop of pond water.
KSU-A chemistry professor Ann Abraham helped students discover a very practical side of distilled water – fuel for an automobile. Abraham received a grant several years ago that allowed her to purchase fuel-cell car kits. She helped the After School Discovery students conduct an experiment that showed how a fuel cell converts water into hydrogen and oxygen, which can be used to power the toy-sized vehicles. This was Abraham’s fourth year to work with the program.
Other presenters included Mark Bergman of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Jamie Graham of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Marc Hanneman of the Sam Wharram Nature Club, Trish MacKeigan of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Mark Schrieber of Ohio Well Water, Dawna Tanner of the Isaac Walton League, Ron Etling of Geauga County Soil and Water, Greg Marvin of the Scenic Rivers program and Clair Zurbach and Crystal Loftus of After School Discovery. Brad Stevenson introduced the students to maps and orienting.
There were 187 students scheduled for the symposium Wednesday and 161 for Thursday. Seymour said a grant has already been secured from the Ohio Environmental Education Fund to help fund next year’s Waterways Adventures.

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