They made aquifers and ate them too. Using fruit snacks, soda, ice cream and sprinkles, Roosevelt Public School third-graders learned about the underground porous rock and sand layers that allow water to move between impermeable rock layers, during an April 27 visit from environmental engineer Natalie Warner. Although writing and drawing pictures helped students learn about aquifer water flow in Ilene Levine’s science class, the sweet stuff Warner brought in really helped make it a lesson to remember.
Top: Roosevelt Public School third-grader Caitlin Yang demonstrates how to pump water out of an aquifer using a model she made out of edible materials in Ilene Levine’s science class on April 27. Bottom: Roosevelt Public School third-graders Rachel Warner (l-r) and Cheyenne Archer review the parts of an aquifer with environmental engineer and classroom visitor Natalie Warner using a model made out of ice cream, soda and candy. PHOTOS BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP “If the kids love to learn — that is my goal,” Levine said.
Warner created a model out of authentic aquifer materials — sand, rocks, clay, pebbles and water. The students followed her lead, making their own aquifers out of edible materials.
When the aquifers were complete, students used food coloring to follow the path pollution takes into groundwater. Students watched as red, blue and green dyes seeped through the layers of sprinkles, candy and vanilla ice cream, and finally into the lemon-limeflavored soda they substituted for groundwater.
Most stormwater runoff pollution results from things people do, Warner told the students as they gasped at the dizzying hues of their “groundwater.” She gave them a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency list of 10 things that their families could do to prevent groundwater pollution. The list includes avoiding the use of fertilizers and pesticides and dumping items down storm drains or in streams.
Vegetating bare spots in the yard, composting yard waste, directing downspouts away from paved surfaces and into rain gardens, taking cars to car washes, checking for car leaks, picking up after pets, and maintaining septic systems properly are also ways to help prevent water contamination.
As an environmental engineer, Warner designs systems to pump contamination out of water. When using their straws as pumps, children discovered that they could retrieve some of the colored water out of the aquifer but the contamination could further spread. When they used more soda to simulate rain, they saw that the colors mix further.
A few years ago, Roosevelt residents had brown water coming out of their pipes, according to Warner. She said silt caused by upstream development contaminated the aquifer, went through the water treatment, up into the water tower, and then down into people’s homes.
Warner explained that Roosevelt pumps groundwater from a 20-foot-deep aquifer into wells that serve the water treatment plant. The plant treats the water before pumping it into the water tower that provides water to most homes in town. The silt situation has since been fixed, she said.
A member of the Society of Women Engineers, an organization that stimulates women to achieve full potential in careers as engineers, Warner visits classrooms to engage students in science experiments and talk about careers in engineering.
Levine said having parents visit the classroom to teach and talk about their professions gives students a real-life connection to their studies.
Warner’s daughter, Rachel, and her classmates Caitlin Yang, Beth Grossman, Ryan Vest, Cheyenne Archer, Emily Buttry, Jackson Mixon, Nyha Gordon, Fred Anish and Gabriel Hoffman enjoyed the candy and ice cream but also learned something from Warner that day.
Cheyenne said, “I liked that we got to make something that was edible. I liked learning about water because it helps me with [raising] my tadpoles, and to understand what’s in our water.”