The sun was shining Wednesday morning and I was thigh-deep in the Little Spokane River with about 35 4th graders watching on. I didn’t slip and a new water-quality monitoring program at St. Georges Elementary school official launched. All-in-all, a pretty successful day.
Analyzing dissolved oxygen with St. Georges Elementary 4th graders - photo courtesy of St. Georges Elementary
Since I became Spokane Riverkeeper, it has always been a goal of mine and the programs to develop water quality monitoring programs with school children. After much brainstorming, discussions with teachers and trail and error, the first of what I hope is many similar programs across the region was launched this week. The St. George’s Elementary Stewards of the Little Spokane River program is a program for 4th grade science students to engage them in meaningful water quality monitoring and analysis of the Little Spokane River; a tributary of the Spokane River, which runs through the campus of St. Geroge’s Elementary school.
The students will be doing monthly water quality monitoring on the Little Spokane River, as well as observational recording such as local weather conditions, changes in the ecosystem, etc. Working with me and some volunteers, the students will record and catalog all results using Google Fusion Tables – a free Google product that acts as an advanced Excel-like program with the ability to map and visualize results. The students will visualize results, analyze results, understand trends in results, and just generally obtain a higher level of understanding of the Little Spokane River and the surrounding ecosystem.
At the end of the school year, the students will present their yearly findings to their classmates and teachers, their parents and members of the public in an open assembly on the school’s campus. I will use The Living River to keep you up to date on how the program is going. The staff at St. Georges Elementary School took some incredible photos on Wednesday. You can view them on the St. Georges website HERE.
