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The nearly 1,000 square miles in the Fountain Creek watershed are plagued by wastewater spills, frequent flooding and erosion that chips away at the foundations of roads and houses.
Leaders in the eight cities it passes through are trying to find solutions, but, like most issues involving water and the West, there aren’t easy answers. Now they’re getting help from an unlikely source: local students such as 16-year-old Sarah Sousa, who recently was studying a small creek near The Grace Center. “It’s nice getting out of the classroom,” Sousa said. “It’s more hands-on.” Sousa was with other St. Mary’s High School students as part of Creek Connections, a field study of local watersheds that teaches students about the connection the community has to its waterways. Part of the curriculum involves performing stream water analysis, which these students have done twice a month at The Grace Center since September. Developed in Pennsylvania, Creek Connections was brought to Colorado Springs via Laura Tuel, who was an intern in the program at Allegheny College. Tuel was hired as director of education at the Catamount Institute in September. Tuel, with the help of Colorado College intern Paige Bedell, has adapted the Pennsylvania program for Colorado and led two half-day teacher workshops on Creek Connections that were attended by 40 teachers from more than 30 local schools. The workshops were designed to pique educators’ interest in teaching the program in their classrooms next semester. “We take the schools right out to the water site,” Tuel said. “They’re the scientist, and they get to go and do water-quality analysis.” Students in Creek Connections are studying the Fountain Creek watershed. Mary Williams is teaching Creek Connections to her applied chemistry and ecology classes at St. Mary’s. “Right now, we’re collecting background data,” Williams said. “One week, the turbidity is really high, or the dissolved oxygen might be low or the pH real off. We say, ‘What can we do about this?’” Erin Udell, 17, is a senior in Williams’ ecology class. “We determine if there’s a rocky or silt bottom, and if the stream is fast moving or slow moving. That helps us determine what kind of fish would live in which area,” Udell said. The program isn’t just for high school students. “We’re touching all grade levels, K-12,” Tuel said. “You don’t have to be a certain age or anything like that. We just adapt. Everyone needs to learn about water.” All three third-grade classes at Manitou Springs Elementary are participating in Creek Connections this year — a total of 71 students. Christi Marquardt, a thirdgrade teacher and six-year veteran of the district, said her students are becoming empowered. “They’re going to begin to see what they as an 8-year-old can do,” Marquardt said. “And when there’s things they can’t do, where the resources are in the community that they can go to.” Students analyze water samples from Fountain Creek and record their data on Allegheny’s Web site. “I love that they’re going to get to see on the Web site how many places are doing exactly what they’re doing,” she said. “Hopefully, they’ll have questions about how their water compares with other communities, not as a contest, but because they’re beginning to care globally. That’s a big concept for an 8-year-old.” Thirty-eight K-12 schools are participating in Creek Connections in Pennsylvania. Tuel hopes to have a similar level of participation in Colorado. Students in the program will display results and conclusions about the watershed at a Creek Connections symposium to be held at Colorado College in April. |
