The Dexter Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Students learn about storm water, environmental impact
By Sean Dalton, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: May 22, 2008
"Detective Frog" paid a visit to Amanda Carlock's second grade classroom last week to enlist student aid in solving 'The Mystery of the Trashy Goo."
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Carlock's was just one of many second-grade classrooms that received the program. It's a silly premise for a serious issue. The "Storm Water" program is designed to teach students about their impact on the environment in a number of ways.
During the workshop, the students participate in helping presenter Laura Kaplan, who plays Detective Frog, figure out why a case of colorful costars modeled after water creatures and plants are getting sick.
Kaplan presents the clues, including photographs, information and mock lab results from a sample of the titular trashy goo left at the "scene of the incident." The students are then asked to piece everything together.
It is presented by the University of Michigan's Ecology Center. It is the first year that the program has been brought into Dexter Community School classrooms. The presentation was funded by the City of Ann Arbor.
"(We) recognize the importance of storm water education in keeping our waters clean," Kaplan said. "We want to help kids and their families learn how to be good stewards for the environment, including the Huron River watershed.
"Let's face it, even many adults don't realize that those storm water drains on the side of the road are for rainwater only."
Kaplan says that too many people just assume that whatever goes down the drain will be cleaned by a water treatment plant before it enters the waterways.
"But our storm drain systems are separate from our sanitary sewers," she said. "And whatever goes down those drains runs directly to rivers, ponds, and lakes without being treated. So we all need to do our part to help keep that water clean, and kids seem very receptive to that message."
At the end of the program, students learn that the goo is actually litter, leaves, grass cuttings, motor oil and other substances that everyday people unknowingly harm the environment with.
Then the students are asked to think of action steps that they, their friends, and their families can take to help keep the goo out of the storm drain system so that it won't pollute Lily's (or any other) pond and other waterways.
To cap it all off, studentts get a hands-on look at how a storm drain system works. They interact with a three-dimensional storm drain model by rolling marbles down the storm drain inlets along a roadside and watch them roll through the underground pipes and come out a storm drain outlet into a pond.
"Students say they want to practice the things they learn in this program," Carlock said, because they realize that their parents, neighbors, friends and even they are contributing to polluting.
"We talk about how this affects Dexter now and in the future," Carlock said. "We hope to make students considerate and think about the affect they will have on the environment."
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