in honor of earth day

A few months ago, our children's first grade teacher asked me if it was true that I was a scientist. I told her that yes, it was true. By education, I am indeed a scientist.



When she issued a follow-up question, inquiring on whether or not I'd be interested to come in and talk with the first graders about science, I jumped at the chance. When I told her that I'm an environmental geochemist, she asked if I would be willing to come in and present on the day that the school would be celebrating Earth Day, which happened to be this past Friday.

My birthday. 

One of the managers in our company, that heads up the Technical Support group, has been very involved with volunteering at schools in the area and he has purchased a few interactive "groundwater models" that clearly illustrate the groundwater relationship between the surface and subsurface.  So I asked if I could borrow one of his models and bring it to my children's elementary school. Then, I recruited Charlie, a hydrogeologist and former community college geology professor, to come assist me in demonstrating this model to 25 first graders.

He, too, jumped at the chance. 

So I told the teacher what we had in store, and she in turn, asked if I would be willing to present the model to the entire first grade. As in, all four of the first grade classes. She'd set us up in one of the large art rooms, and we would be able to talk to all of the kids at once.

Since I was planning to take the day off from work, I told her that would be great.  And then I added that if there were any other classes that would be interested in hearing our "science" talk, we'd be more than happy to talk to them, too.  All told, we ended up presenting to more than 300 children.  We covered the entire first grade, second grade and third grade classes. The only thing that stopped us from presenting to the entire school (through sixth grade) was lack of time.

I started off by asking the children why Earth Day was important.



All of the grades talked about air and water and soil and trash and pollution and recycling. But then I asked, "Where would we go if the earth became so dirty we couldn't live here anymore?"  One of the children answered, "A moon colony!" and I laughed and said, "Are you rooting for Gingrich in 2012?"

(Yes, he was. Turns out, the DC area is a very politically charged environment and children are introduced to presidential rallying very young. Who knew?)

Then we talked about the water cycle and I taught the kids a little song that I heard years ago which is sung to "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain." It goes something like this ...


Water travels in a cycle, yes it does!
Water travels in a cycle, yes it does!
It goes up as EVAPORATION...
Forms clouds of CONDENSATION...
Then rains down as PRECIPITATION, yes it does!

We talked about chemicals and how some chemicals are important, but if they are thrown away improperly, they become contamination that can enter the water cycle and effect our soil, water and air - which in turn, can really hurt plants, animals and us.

Then Charlie took over and talked about groundwater and how it moves differently, depending upon the soil type. It moves much faster through pebbles and coarse sand, than it does through sands, silts and clay.



That was the segue to pull off the towel from the groundwater model, which we'd kept hidden from the kids. The room was instantly filled with "Oohhs!" and "Ahhhs"!

Our little demonstration consisted of showing the kids how water flows through the subsurface and "recharges" rivers and lakes. We talked about wells and how groundwater gets in to those wells, and when we asked how many children got their water from a well on their property, nearly half the hands in the room shot up.

So we put forth the example that someone who lived down the street decided to paint their house blue. And then didn't know what to do with the leftover paint and rather than take it to the landfill, they decided to dump it down an old well that was screened deeper than any other well they had on their property.  We injected a small amount of blue food coloring in to the deep well and narrated, "What does it matter?  It won't hurt anyone. Right?  It's BELOW ground. No one will ever see it and no one will ever know!"

But then we showed the kids how the contamination quickly moved through the subsurface and how eventually, the water that they were "extracting" from their well turned BLUE.

MAN WERE THOSE KIDS TICKED OFF. 

Apparently, no one wants to take a blue bubble bath?

Then we showed the kids that someone else decided to pour used motor oil in to a pit in their yard, under the same concept. No one will ever know!

But lo and behold, that motor oil (which we demonstrated with red food coloring) soon turned the lake, where they were supposed to go swimming and fishing that weekend, bright RED.



It was quite a sight to see all of those little children get so ANGRY at the people who didn't dispose of their waste properly and were killing the fish in the lake.

HOW DARE THEY!

All of the teachers warned us that the kids might get uneasy and lose focus, but everyone - even the teachers - were totally captivated.  By the time Charlie and I finished talking, the blue paint had mixed with the red used motor oil and the river was purple.

We talked to each grade for about 20 minutes and then we had all of the children, all 300+ of them, come up in groups of 10 and help us to clean up the environment.

We told them they were geologists and engineers and their job was to figure out how to get the contamination out of the ground and asked how, going forward, they would protect the wells and rivers.  We had them lining landfills with clay barriers (i.e., Silly Putty) and abandoning old wells.



The United States was once a powerhouse in math and science, but over the past few decades, it has slipped substantially. If we really want to improve the future of our country, we need to get kids excited about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education and careers. Now, aside from the obvious, of raising our children the best we can; Charlie and I both feel like we've been on a bit of a quest, lately, trying to figure out what it is that we should be doing with our lives. After Friday, I think we've figured it out. Now, if we can just figure out a way to subsidize our costs of traveling around the country bringing science to schools, we're totally IN.

This is our calling in life!

We were high-fiving everyone and I lost count of how many children told me that when they grow up - they, too, were going to become scientists.  The teachers (and Principal) have asked for us to come back again, and over the weekend, I've bumped in to several families who we know through the neighborhood, sports and scouts, that have told me that their kids haven't stopped talking about what they saw on Friday.

While it certainly was great to hear all of those sweet little people sing me "Happy Birthday" the best part of the day was watching their faces (and ours) light up about SCIENCE.

I honestly can't think of a more perfect way to spend my birthday.