January 2011 - Science With SoundWaters All Year Round

Science learning never stops at SoundWaters. Beginning this month, SoundWaters educators are engaging approximately 1,100 middle school students from Stamford in a year-long project to compare and contrast water quality in the classroom and at field sites along riverbanks and coastlines.

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The hands-on watershed science experience gives students multiple opportunities to learn from, explore and develop meaningful connections to their local environment. The program, now in its third year, is funded through a multi-year grant awarded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

All 8th grade students in Stamford's public schools will be learning science by doing science, through a unique and successful curriculum created by SoundWaters staff that reinforces classroom lessons with practical, hands-on science experiments.

"We get to know what the environment is about, how to help it, and how to help ourselves," said a student who participated in the program last year. "My favorite part was probably the testing for the pH, salinity and metals."

The program begins with an interactive, internet-based lesson in the classroom as an introduction to watershed concepts. Later in the month, SoundWaters educators will visit more than 20 science classrooms, guiding teams of students as they set up models and practice protocols to measure groundwater filtration, turbidity and water quality.

At a groundwater filtration station, for example, students select and layer common materials found in the earth-moss, rocks, sand and soil-to determine which materials best filter out pollutants from water. Through discussion and analysis of the observed data, they reach consensus on the most effective materials that absorb pollutants.

Stay tuned: This spring, students will trek through muddy riverbanks and slushy coastlines to apply the classroom experiments at two field sites. They will measure the effect of water quality in a fresh water river and in the brackish water of Long Island Sound.

"This is the stuff that they'll remember," said one teacher, "and at dinner time talk about with their parents."

Regards,

Leigh Shemitz, Ph.D.
Executive Director
SoundWaters