By Meg Peters
Review Co-editor
General Motors environmental engineers and members of the Clinton River Watershed Council played in the muck last week with nearly 100 students from Scripps Middle School.
What were they doing?
Looking for critters. Racing oranges. Testing pH levels. Talking about professions in science and engineering careers. Those kinds of things.
Eighth grade students were enjoying their annual field trip to the Clinton River as part of the watershed council’s Classroom Water Quality Monitoring Program sponsored by Earth Force’s GM GREEN program.
GM’s goal is to promote STEM education? science, technology, engineering and mathematics’in order to benefit the environment later on.
‘In the environmental group, and GM as a whole, we’re all about protecting the environment. We know that building cars kind of leaves a footprint, so part of what we’re doing here is educating kids as they grow up on how the environment is actually set up, and what contributes to pollution and other things,? GM senior environmental engineer Robert Fenn said, as he sifted through water bugs. ‘By training them at this age to understand and be responsible for the environment, it leads into our business in making sure that the vehicles that we build, and that people are being more aware of what they do and don’t contribute to emissions and green house gas.?
With sleeves rolled up, Fenn dug around with students sorting river specimen and explaining its significance.
The most popular find that day were scores of caddisflies, which students plopped in ice cube trays among other river critters. Looking closely at worksheets labeling the common critters, students wrote out which bug was which.
‘It’s kind of easier with the pictures, and if you really look at it you can see the differences, but it is kind of hard. There are so many different ones, you kind of think one is the other but it’s not,? Rosemary Wiegers said.
Classifying the bugs helps explain what is going on with the river. River velocity, shoreline erosion, types of critters all help determine if a river is healthy or not.
‘It’s really interesting to find out all the different types of things that live in our water,? Vivian Waldis said.
Different stations along the river shore prompted different studies. Not only were students wading in waist deep, stirring up the bottom and collecting samples, they were measuring the Clinton River’s pH level, testing for chemicals and averaging the estimated flow of water in cubic feet per second.
One group found that the Clinton River’s water traveled at 113 cubic feet per second.
‘Its all the different aspects. It’s a really great cross-curriculum,? Scripps eighth grade math teacher Paul Adams said.
Students get a little bit of history tossed in with their science and math, and an English skills topper as they are required to summarize all their responses and interview one of the professionals assisting each station.
‘It’s pretty cool? Adams said.
It’s also cool for the Clinton River Watershed Council, because they get a little perk too.
‘The main thing for us as an organization is creating a new generation of stewards for the environment,? Clinton River Watershed Council representative Michelle Arquette-Palermo said.
After a day in the river, the council compiles water quality data collected by students and uses it as the community’s baseline data.
For Arquette-Palermo, the main goal, however, is just to get students having fun outside.
‘This is something that these students live just a few miles from. So it’s important for them to get out and realize what their impact can be on their local environment,? she said.