After the COVID-19 pandemic Rissa Stephens noticed that many of the students she worked with at Walnut Park Elementary School in Gadsden were grappling with fear.

“They were very apprehensive about trying new things,” said Stephens, a retired science teacher who does intervention and enrichment work with Gadsden City Schools.

The students also weren’t spending much time outside. Stephens knew an environmental science project could address both issues.

So she teamed up with Roseanne Green, the Advanced Placement (AP) Environmental Science teacher at Gadsden City High School, for a joint project all about water quality. Fifteen 11^th and 12^th grade students from Green’s AP Environmental Science class were matched with fourth and fifth grade students from Stephens’ afterschool program with the job of teaching the younger students how to use water analysis kits. Green and Stephens were able to purchase refills of the testing solutions for the kits with a grant they received from the Alabama Power Foundation’s Students to Stewards program.

Understanding that today’s students are tomorrow’s stewards, the Foundation established the Students to Stewards Grant program to promote environmental stewardship and STEAM education across the state. Since 2014, Students to Stewards has awarded more than 40 grants totaling more than $100,000 to support education in Alabama.

Working together after school during the 2023-2024 academic year, the high schoolers and elementary students tested water from nearby sources, such as Black Creek and the Coosa River. The students learned how to monitor pH levels, alkalinity (a body of water’s ability to resist acidification and maintain a stable pH level), dissolved oxygen levels (which affect the survival of most aquatic organisms) and turbidity (the measure of how clear a liquid is). All these factors help to indicate the quality of water.

In Gadsden City Schools a group of high schoolers and fourth and fifth graders discovered they can be stewards of the environment at any age as they learned how to monitor the water quality in their community. (contributed)

“I wanted a way to get these kids outside, to inspire them to want to take science and to make science real for them,” Stephens said. “This was something that had real-life issues and would connect them with their community.”

After Green taught her students how to use the kits, the high schoolers were tasked with sharing their knowledge with Stephens’ fourth and fifth graders.

“I always say to my students that they really know they know content when they can teach it,” Green said. “But the way our classes are structured, we don’t really have a lot of time for students to teach. They might show their mastery by presenting a project now and then, but this gave them the opportunity to be in the role of expert.”

The project gave Green’s students an opportunity to show off their knowledge, but Green was also eager to help spark a love of science in younger students.

“What we see in elementary schools are that many teachers focus on math and reading, because typically that’s what’s on our standardized testing for our younger students,” Green said, “but as a result what we see later in middle and high school is that kids are not comfortable with science, experimentation or scientific processes.”

Through this project, the fourth and fifth graders were able to see their future selves doing science and being good stewards of their environment.

“They look up to high school students,” Stephens said. “I think that it gave them much more self-confidence and spurred them to want to ask more questions about our water. It made them critical thinkers.”

Using supplies purchased with a Students to Stewards grant from the Alabama Power Foundation, these students are determining the pH levels of a water sample. (contributed)

The project centered on a simple question: why should you care about water quality? The students learned about Alabama’s biodiversity and the role that water plays in sustaining nature as we know it. They learned where their drinking water comes from and about the recreational and other important uses of water. For both the high schoolers and the elementary students, the project showed them that they can make a difference at a young age by helping to take care of the water sources in their community. In fact, some of Green’s students even expressed interest in pursuing careers related to monitoring Alabama’s water quality.

“They had more ownership of the content that they were learning,” Green said. “In a high school setting, you’re learning to make a good grade in a class or on a test. But with this they saw how they could use this knowledge in environmental stewardship.”

 For more information about Students to Stewards and the Alabama Power Foundation, including community and volunteer initiatives, visit www.powerofgood.com.