Over 60 people (kids of all ages, dads, moms) from our school joined hundreds of community volunteers pitching in to unearth clothing, car parts, concrete, bones, and other interesting items from the dry, sandy river bed. The students were inspired by this event to do something to help our local river.
Heather Merenda from Environmental Services for the City of Santa Clarita describes our local watershed and related issues. Her demonstration showed students that where once large factories were the primary water polluters, now the majority of contaminants come from "non-source point" pollution. This build up of litter, chemicals, fertilizer, pet waste, etc. from individual homes, lawns, commerical buildings, and streets runs into the storm drain system when it rains. Everybody's little bit that they thought didn't matter joins with all the other "little bits" as urban runoff. If not controlled, it goes unfiltered into the Santa Clara River (which supplies about 50% of our drinking water) then on to the ocean. Her presentation opened the students' eyes to an important community concern and motivated them to look for a possible "pollution solution" to urban runoff.
A popular geology and astronomy teacher, Mr. Van Winkle is a retired Water Systems Manager. (Fun fact: In 1987 when Santa Clarita became a city, he was the first City Engineer.) He explained to the students how the Dry Canyon Aqueduct directly behind our school ties to the Santa Clara River. It is something we pass over everyday yet most of us ignore that the quality of the runoff in the aqueduct will affect our drinking water supply. Usually, there is a slow, shallow flow of water in the bottom of the channel. (See insert photo: the can is not floating but rests on the bottom of the aqueduct. Dry spot under bridge. ) However, on the day of the Rain Garden construction, there was a storm in the mountains north of the school. While we had a few sprinkles at school, in less than 30 minutes, the storm created eough runoff to significantly raise the water level nearly 1 foot. Students were surprised by the dramatic change-noisy, rushing, turbulent- as well as the amount of debris in the water- balls, wood, clothing, trash, etc.. Our Rain Garden will be a first defense against our school putting more runoff, pollution, and debris into the stormdrain system.
Fortunately, we had enough rain that the students could observe and identify campus runoff problems. As you can see above, the team collected water samples from a variety of sources-playground puddles, street, building downspouts, roof overflow. Notice that some samples appeared to contain contaminents (see the murky, brown "street" sample) while with others (roof rm.#24) it appeared clear & clean. So, it was off to the Science Lab to run tests.
1/21/12- 1st trial: Led by the 6th grade students, water testing was accomplished by establishing procedures to ensure that each sample was analyzed for pH, nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia levels. Using pond water kits, the students added a prepared reacting agent to each sample then observed the resulting color indicator. Each sample was transferred to a holding tube, the result recorded in the log and on the tube. Samples were sorted by source (i.e.-"street" ) for future reference. It required organization, focus, and cooperation to obtain accurate readings as well as data records. The kids exhibited excellent team work!
2/3/12--2nd trial: Knowing that one set of data wasn't sufficient to make proper conclusions, the students trained 3rd & 5th graders to independently retest the runoff samples. Four tests were repeated on each water sample measuring different chemical levels that could have an effect on fish exposed to the runoff. Results were compared and recorded.