Fermilab LInC Online

 

CheSSie

Middle School

Student Pages

Summary

Evaluation

Background

Index of Projects


As sixth grade students at Blessed Sacrament School, we have been working with

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In the process several members of our class have questioned the materials and methods that were used in the mystery. Some of our class have expressed an interest in determining if those methods are standard procedures and what results would we get if we used those methods to determine the health of our nearest stream--Beach St. Tributary of Rock Creek.

After Dr. June Hunt of the Audubon Naturalist Society of the Mid- Atlantic Region led us in the watershed workshop, she called to ask if our class would consider monitoring the Beach Street Tributary. It seems that no one has monitored the stream since the budget cutbacks in the early 1990's. During our last class meeting, we voted to make this our class project for the year. Our teacher says she knows of another school that is interested in doing a similar project. It might be possible to compare data and so on by using the electronic journals of our JASON@School accounts.


Blue square locates Blessed Sacrament School


So, by our account, we have a lot of preliminary work to do. During our discussion in our class meeting, we prepared the following list of jobs that need to be done.

Our job is to:

1. Determine which governing body is responsible for Rock Creek and it tributaries within the boundaries of the District of Columbia.
2.Apply for any needed permits and/or contact any offices or governing bodies which are necessary to use government- owned land.
3.Identify what materials are needed to conduct various testing procedures.
4.Locate past records of stream health at that location or at nearby tributaries.
5.Plan and carry out testing of water.
6. Organize data and post on JASON@School student bulletin board.
7. Identify and locate another school doing similar type investigation.
8. Compare our data with the second school; compare both schools data to that which is collected by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation for the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.
9. Determine if procedures are adaptable to all areas of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.
10. Find out what are the standard procedures for determining stream health.
11. Obtain current maps of the area so that we can document where we are working and the results.
12. Maintain contact with school administration so that a schedule for stream monitoring can be established and posted
with the master school calendar.
13. Prepare [with teacher supervision] permission letters for parents, transportation to site [when weather or time do not allow for walking to site] and any other types of communication which may become necessary as the plan develops.


The executive officers have organized these jobs into four teams. Those teams and their responsibilities are:


Each team will have 7-8 members. The first team meeting will be to

Each team will be responsible for:


The team leader will be responsible for reporting back to the central crew which is composed of the four team leaders. The classroom teacher will be available as an advisor to this group.

Job assignments and due dates are to be posted by each team's scribe on the class bulletin board.

The central crew will call general meetings when needed.

First Meeting is tomorrow.


 

Created for the Fermilab LInC program sponsored by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Education Office, Friends of Fermilab, United States Department of Energy, Illinois State Board of Education, and North Central Regional Technology in Education Consortium (NCRTEC) which is operated by North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL).

 

Author(s): Susan Hurstcalderone (calderone@sysnet.net), Blessed Sacrament School, Washington, DC
Mellie Lewis (mlewis@umd5.umd.edu), Atholton Elementary School, Columbia, MD.
Created: May 19, 1998 - Updated:
URL: /lincon/w98/projects/chesapeake/student_blsach.tml