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Students put waters to the test

outdoor chemistry: Project has youths out of lab, checking health of Capitol Lake, other sites

VENICE BUHAIN; The Olympian | • Published October 19, 2009

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OLYMPIA – For Riley Killip, a fifth-grader at L.P. Brown Elementary School, Capitol Lake will look a little different after his class tested its waters.

“I will try a lot harder not to flip my kayak in Capitol Lake,” said Riley, 10. “It’s got tons of algae in it.”

He and his classmates in teacher Charleen Hayes’ fifth-grade science class were among the dozens throughout South Sound that headed out Thursday to test local waterways for acidity, fecal coliform and other indicators of water quality.

The classes were organized by organizations South Sound GREEN, the Nisqually River Education Project and Chehalis Basin Education Project, to test the health of the water and learn about the animals and plants that live there, including salmon. The classes range from elementary school-aged children to a college group from Saint Martin’s University.

The organizations send field test kits, arrange for field trips and for transportation in some cases.

Representatives from the classes converge in the spring for a student congress, where students share data and observations about local waterways.

There are more than 2,500 students participating in the project, and some of them plan to head to their sites this Thursday, said Anne Mills, program coordinator with South Sound GREEN.

Hayes’ classes took on Capitol Lake, which is connected to Budd Inlet. Hayes’ students ran through the tests in the classroom before heading out to conduct them at the lake. Students tested dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature, nitrates and turbidity, and collected samples for fecal coliform and total suspended solids.

“Maybe if we didn’t know how to do it, it would have been hard to do it out here,” said Chris Norman, 10.

“It was a lot more beautiful out here, too,” Riley said.

Other classmates made observations about the park and surveyed the park’s lawn for “nitrogenous waste,” also known as dog excrement.

Mills said that teachers have a lot of leeway in how the field trip fits into their class or club. For Hayes’ class, the field trip serves a dual assignment. In addition to the testing, it’s a social studies project that tackles the issue of whether Capitol Lake should remain a man-made lake, revert to an estuary, or some other alternative.

Hayes said the social studies project investigates the different aspects of the debate, and students learn to reach their own conclusion using the evidence and to write an essay defending their choice.

The two projects together give students a chance to see the lake from a scientific, environmental and social perspective.

“It ties them in and this becomes their lake,” Hayes said.

Venice Buhain: 360-754-5445

vbuhain@theolympian.com