|
Students at Rodney Thompson Middle School check the pH level of water taken from Accokeek Creek. The water sample tested About 183 students from Rodney Thompson Middle School took part in a Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (SAV) festival behind the school yesterday. As part of the class project, students went to six different stations in the adjacent woods learning about the school's watershed. |
A local middle school turned an in-class experiment into an outdoors adventure yesterday.
Science classes at Rodney Thompson Middle School in Stafford County have been growing underwater grass in tanks in their classrooms. But their teacher is hoping they'll learn a lot more than just how grass grows.
The grass the students grew is called submerged aquatic vegetation--SAV for short--and the type is commonly known as wild celery.
The grass will be planted next week at the opposite end of Accokeek Creek from the school, near where it joins Potomac Creek.
"It's a wonderful opportunity for the kids to be outdoors and know how something they saw grow from a seed all the way into a full plant will be utilized and how important it is," said Belinda Castolandolt, an eighth-grade science teacher.
Since the planting in February, Castolandolt said she's been teaching her students how important SAV is for the environment in Stafford County.
Wild celery serves as a food for a number of species of wildlife. It also provides shelter and oxygen.
Yesterday's adventure was one way students could learn about the importance of SAV in a hands-on way.
"We tested the nitrates and the pH to see which plants grow the best in the water," said Lauren Kozar, an eighth-grader.
Through this knowledge, Kozar said she now understands how having SAVs in Accokeek Creek and the Potomac River can affect the wildlife in the area. She and some classmates spent yesterday helping teach sixth- and seventh-graders what they knew.
The students visited six stations in the woods behind the middle school to learn about wildlife and its relationship to SAVs.
On their first stop, a group got a taste of bird-watching as they used binoculars to search the skies for local bird species.
"I really liked the bird watching," said Brittany Campbell, a sixth-grader who said she had done some bird-watching before at home.
Another stop included making "seed balls," where they wrapped seed and humus together in clay to grow flowers. There were two lessons in water, one to learn how to test pH, and what kind of water fish live best in, and another to understand the local watersheds, and how the water that flows near their school ends up in the Chesapeake Bay.
The students also listened to storytelling from an American Indian who has lived in Stafford for 65 years.
Lou Ellen Whitefeather told how the waterways have changed since she first called Stafford home, and how their planting of the SAVs will help the environment from being further damaged.
"With the water pollution and the air pollution, the only thing the birds and fish have left was mother earth to sustain them, and as long as they have places like Crow's Nest, they will survive," Whitefeather said.
Donna Finnegan brought amphibians and reptiles, showing the students the different types of salamanders, newts, snakes and toads that live in the area.
"I liked the animal station the best because we can learn a lot from them," said sixth-grader Haley Marino.
Castolandolt said the idea for growing SAVs in the classroom came when she was kayaking with a friend, Patricia Kurpiel, who had grown them in her house.
"Last year one of the jobs we did for the Chesapeake was count how much grass was in the Accokeek Creek, and that's what made us think that if we would grow our own, it would be better down there," said Kurpiel, who is also a member of the Friends of Stafford Creeks.
The grass seeds were given to the class by Dana Wiggins, who works for a Chesapeake Bay Foundation program called Grasses for the Masses.
Wiggins said they may continue the program at Rodney Thompson next year.
"Ideally we would have it at Aquia Landing, a public beach in Stafford where kids can see SAVs," Castolandolt said.
To reach ELLEN BILTZ:
Email: ebiltz@freelancestar.com
