Baylor, City of Waco Team With Waco ISD to Support World Water Monitoring Day
by Katie Brooks, student newswriter, (254) 710-6805
Baylor University's Center for Aquatic Systems Research (CRASR) and the City of Waco paired with Waco ISD to help local middle school students test the water quality from streams, rivers and lakes near their schools during World Water Monitoring Day.
CRASR and the Lake Waco Wetlands are partners in "Marsh Madness," a science education adventure focused on wetland environments. Each Waco ISD campus selected one day during the month to analyze and research water samples provided by CRASR.
Baylor faculty and students provided maps and aerial photographs, collected and delivered water samples and provided test kits and training for teachers and hundreds of seventh and eighth graders.
"The event allowed students to take a 'virtual field trip' to a nearby water body and to test the water quality without leaving the classroom," said Melissa Mullins, Marsh Madness coordinator for CRASR.
She said students collected data from a water sample taken at their site and reported this data along with data from around the world on the World Water Monitoring Day web site.
Marsh Madness is a program of the GEAR UP Waco partnership and pays for field trips and teacher training so that WISD students can participate in hands-on science activities at the Lake Waco Wetlands, Mullins said.
Held annually between Sept. 18 and Oct. 18, World Water Monitoring Day (WWMD) engages communities from around the world in monitoring the condition of local rivers, streams, estuaries and other water bodies. Since its inception in 2002, more than 80,000 people have participated in 50 countries. The data that Waco middle schools collected on their sites can be viewed at www.worldwatermonitoringday.org.
For more information about the Marsh Madness Program, contact Melissa Mullins, Melissa_Mullins@baylor.edu or (254) 710-2382 or Nora Schell with the Lake Waco Wetland at (254) 848-9654. For more information on GEAR UP Waco contact Dr. Jewel Lockridge at Jewel_Lockridge@baylor.edu.