Return
to bay studies
by Sean Sedam
Staff Writer
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May 14, 2003
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| Brian Lewis/The Gazette: Forest Oak eighth-graders CJ Subadan (left) and Samantha Howell use a seine net to take samples of aquatic life from a stream near the Gaithersburg school on May 2. |
The green letters stenciled on a sewer in the driveway of Forest Oak Middle
School read "Chesapeake Bay Drainage/Don't Dump."
In recent weeks, eighth-graders at the Gaithersburg school have been learning firsthand why that message is so important.
The students have been taking samples of the water and the aquatic life found in two streams near the school on Saybrooke Oaks Boulevard in Gaithersburg as part of a hands-on project to study the streams' overall health.
Students spent class time collecting data from five different sites in two streams, one that parallels Midcounty Highway behind the school and another that parallels Goshen Road west of the school grounds.
They used that data to draw conclusions about the health of their streams, which they will present as part of a town hall meeting at 7 p.m. on Thursday in the Forest Oak cafeteria. Students' presentations will be on display in galleries around the school.
This is the second year students have studied the health of the streams, said science teacher Suzanne Dashiell. That has allowed students to compare this year's data with last year's.
"We're doing this to prove the health of our stream and to see if it's good or bad," eighth-grader Mariam Jawara said. "And to see if the construction around it is affecting it in a good or bad way."
Students concluded that the ongoing construction of homes in the nearby Hidden Creek community has had no ill effects on the streams' health.
"Our stream is pretty healthy," said eighth-grader Kimberly Chodnicki. "All of our chemical tests showed up as positive [for a healthy stream]."
Chodnicki and Jawara's group planned to present their findings using a slide show and a model of their stream site, complete with real grass, water and fish.
Erica Shingara, an environmental specialist with the city of Gaithersburg who will attend Thursday's town hall meeting, said the students' findings echo the results of a recent professional study of the 24 miles of city streams.
That study also found that the streams near the school provided a healthy habitat and healthy water quality, Shingara said.
But with so many miles of streams included in the citywide study, the professional researchers performed fewer tests on the stream segments near Forest Oak than the students, she said.
"[The students] actually went above and beyond," she said.
The students' field research included a day of recording observations about the stream, such as plant and animal life they saw and whether the banks were paved or showed signs of erosion.
A second day of research allowed students to use D-Nets and seine nets to catch macroinvertebrates, such as crayfish, dragonflies and aquatic worms.
Macroinvertebrates are all sensitive to pollution, said eighth-grader Carolyn Snee. But the macroinvertebrates that students found were healthy and alive, giving further evidence of a healthy stream.
Some students learned the perils of hands-on science lessons.
"I did try to pick up some crayfish, but I kind of got bitten," Talisa Jeffreys said.
Students also found frogs and snakes.
"There's a lot of different species in the stream that you wouldn't think were there," Jeffreys said.
"We also found fish and salamanders, but they're not invertebrates," Snee said.
Students ran chemical tests on stream water samples measuring nitrates, phosphates, pH, turbidity, dissolved oxygen in the water and water hardness.
The pH measures acids or bases in the water. Turbidity refers to how clear the water is. Nitrates are dissolved nutrients, which can accumulate in streams polluted by soil fertilizers and can present problems for aquatic life, said 14-year-old Nick Curtin, a co-leader of one of the research teams.
"It takes a lot of the dissolved oxygen away, which is basically what fish breathe," he said.
Students will put what they have learned on display Thursday, through puppet shows, mock news reports, models and PowerPoint presentations. They will also give tours of the stream monitoring sites, weather permitting.
The meeting will allow students "to inform the public of what to do to keep the streams healthy," Dashiell said.
That includes creating plant buffers to prevent soil erosion near streams and making people aware of the harms of washing cars with detergents and dumping motor oil or other pollutants down sewers, she said. Those pollutants can wind up in streams that run into the Chesapeake Bay.
"Anything you do in your backyard can affect the bay," Curtin said.
The project has been made possible by a $9,300 grant from the Chesapeake Bay Trust, a nonprofit organization that funds Chesapeake Bay restoration and education projects in Maryland.
The trust, best known for its "Treasure the Chesapeake" commemorative license plates, also receives funding from private donations and the contribution option on Maryland income tax forms. It gave Forest Oak $1,600 last year for the first year of the project.
The grant will also allow students to take part in a restoration project later this spring in which they will create a natural stream buffer by planting native plants along the banks of the stream, Dashiell said.
The stream study has been the topic of lessons in a variety of classes in recent weeks.
In English classes students read about the chemistry and biology of the streams in preparation for their field research. They also mapped the streams in world studies classes and compiled a stream profile, measuring the width, depth and stream velocity -- or swiftness of its current, in math classes. French and Spanish classes created murals with bay-related words.
"It's a good model for interdisciplinary teaching," Dashiell said. "We hope to continue it."