Tag Archives: Plaster Creek

School News Network: Better together: high schoolers and second-graders tackle Plaster Creek

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Second-grader Alexa Montano will be working with 11th-graders Kaniya Raby, left, and Sharolyn Rodriguez over the next two months to learn more about Plaster Creek (School News Network)

By Bridie Bereza
School News Network


On a sunny, spring-like day, Kara Jones rounded up her second-grade students from Godfrey-Lee’s Early Childhood Center and walked with them across the district’s athletic fields adjacent to Plaster Creek. Their destination? The neighboring East Lee Campus, Godfrey-Lee Public Schools’ alternative high school program.

Once inside the building, Jones’ students scattered to classrooms and got acquainted with East Lee students, who read the younger pupils books that they had written about the creek outside.

Some of the second-graders were timid; others talkative. One girl had a case of the giggles. The meeting was the first of several weekly meetups that will happen between the two groups from now until the end of May as part of a “Community Legacy” unit at the high school, which uses a problem-based learning model.

Sharolyn Rodriguez and Kaniya Raby, 11th-graders, were all smiles as they got to know second-grader Alexa Montano. Kaniya said that creating the book was a little stressful and a lot of fun.

“Reading it to her just makes it all the more worth it,” said Kaniya, pointing to Alexa.

Second-grader Alfredo DeLeon said he liked the book that East Lee students Logan Barton and Joel Garcia wrote to teach him about Plaster Creek.

“We made it fun — added a time machine — and didn’t try to use big words,” said Joel. “I tried to make it as simple as possible.”

Second-grader Carlos Urbina and 10th-grader Christopher Andrade get to know each other at East Lee Campus. (School News Network)

Troubled Water

While keeping it as simple as possible will be necessary in order to share what they’re learning with the second-graders, East Lee students have chosen a complex issue to tackle for this unit.

“As a school we’re trying to do something that makes an impact on the bigger community around us,” said English teacher Sarah Byrne, who is team-teaching the unit with social studies teacher Justin Noordhoek. “The students have chosen to focus on cleaning up Plaster Creek, which is the most polluted waterway in West Michigan, we’ve learned.”

The unit began with students researching the waterway, which runs alongside East Lee Campus and the Early Childhood Center, and taking a bus tour of the Plaster Creek watershed and Wyoming area led by David Britten, former superintendent and current historian for the district. The bus tour gave the students a chance to photograph the current landscape and understand the historical factors that contributed to pollution in the creek.

While they’re still gathering data and learning about Plaster Creek, East Lee students are moving into the action phase of their study. The students will look to Plaster Creek Stewards, a project led by faculty, staff, and students from Calvin College, for guidance. The group will lead the Godfrey-Lee students in activities at Shadyside Park in Dutton to help them recognize creek-related problems in agricultural areas, then will advise them on ways they can help to restore the watershed. This may include hands-on restoration efforts such as planting trees and installing rain gardens.

Partnering with with Jones’ class to pass on what they are learning seemed like a good fit for the East Lee students.

Noordhoek said that in the past, he’s noticed the students really thrive when working with younger students.

“I really think a lot of them have so much talent with little kids and they don’t sometimes see that in themselves,” said Noordhoek.

Second-grader Diego Pina-Salcedo answers questions about his likes and dislikes with East Lee Campus student Bryan Barrios. (School News Network)

Leaving a Legacy Together

Jones, who has created and taught thematic units in her second-grade classroom on legacy concepts, was a natural partner for East Lee. The high school students will soon create lesson plans about Plaster Creek and teach them to Jones’ class. The two classes will also journal, take field trips, and plant trees together.

Jones said that teachers don’t often get the chance to bring different age levels together to work on a shared project. She said she hopes the collaboration will push her students to learn and will make the older students mindful of how they interact with younger ones, challenging everyone involved.

“I hope that they understand their environmental impact and that they make a new friend in the process,” said Jones.

Noordhoek said that he hopes this project shows students that they don’t need to wait for someone else to come and make a difference, and that they will feel empowered to do something when they recognize a problem: “They can be their own agents of change.”

Added Byrne, “Always our goal, no matter what projects we do, is that students are aware that they have the power to make the world a better place. If we can improve their literacy and critical thinking skills, and knowledge of history while doing this — that’s perfect.”

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Using what they’ve learned about Plaster Creek so far, East Lee students created books to share with students in Kara Jones’ second-grade class. (School News Network)

Measuring Plaster Creek’s progress in microbes

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Photo by Amanda Impens

By Connor Bechler, Calvin College

 

E. Coli, a largely harmless but occasionally dangerous bacteria present in animal and human feces, is found throughout the Plaster Creek watershed. The E. Coli strains present in the watershed from animal waste are likely the product of agricultural runoff. However, when it comes to the E. Coli from human waste, according to professor Kelly DuBois, “it’s really not known where that’s coming from.”

 

So, does DuBois, a professor of biology, intend to track down the source? “Based on how often they’re finding [E. Coli]—all over the place—it can’t be one source, so we have a really small chance of pinpointing all the sources and shutting them all down,” said DuBois.

 

Instead, she is working with a group of student researchers to assess if green infrastructure installations could be an environmentally safe solution. In particular, they are looking at the impact of Kreiser pond, a retention basin installed in a residential area of Grand Rapids four or five years ago, “which is essentially a U-shaped little pond,” built to slow rainwater runoff. “We know it slows the flow down, it absolutely works for that,” said DuBois, “but my question was: what is it doing with the microbes in the water?”

A collaborative legacy

While according to DuBois, “it’s been shown in some instances that green infrastructure can be really efficient at removing bacterial contamination,” she hopes to prove that it’s effective in Plaster Creek’s case so that future green infrastructure projects in the watershed can be designed with microbial reduction in mind.

 

The project is in collaboration with the Plaster Creek Stewards, a group of Calvin faculty, staff, and students who have been working over a decade on the restoration of the Plaster Creek watershed. “It’s a fun group to be a  part of,” said DuBois, “because there’s so much collaboration, and everyone comes at it from a little different perspective.”

 

DuBois was inspired to work with Plaster Creek Stewards after doing research through Calvin’s Clean Water Institute last year. “I was really excited to be a part of [the Clean Water Institute], and that has kind of led to [working with Plaster Creek],” she said, “because I developed that skill set last summer with my student, it was like ‘hey, we can apply these [tools] to Plaster Creek too!”

Pursuing proper stewardship

“As biologists, obviously, creation care is something that’s very important to us,” DuBois said, “I honestly love bench science, but it’s nice to have a project [where] it’s easier for students to see the direct connection with taking care of creation.” She added, “we can see, when we measure stuff in that water, that humans have had a negative impact on this little part of creation, and so it’s very practical to say we want to turn that around now.”

 

One of the student researchers, Kate DeHeer, a junior majoring in biology and biochemistry, has observed firsthand the positive community impacts of the Steward’s work: “we’ve only been out to the pond twice, but have met around five neighbors interested in our work.” She added, “they all seem to be fond of Kreiser and were happy to have it in their neighborhood.”

 

According to Tobe Ndika, a junior biology major with a pre-med concentration, “[this research] has made me aware of the need for stewardship towards God’s creation.” He added “I feel called to make the world a better place.”

 

Reprinted with permission from Calvin College.

School News Network: Schoolyard watershed stewardship

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Kole James and Anaiah Dokes find creek critters

By Erin Albanese

School News Network

Oh, the creatures you’ll find in a creek!

Early Childhood Center students shrieked as they discovered the tiny inhabitants of Plaster Creek. “I got something! It’s got legs! It’s got legs!” one squealed as she scooped an insect from a mini-pond created over plastic inside a hula hoop.

Students explored, observed and connected with nature during Water Day, a celebration of Plaster Creek. It was organized by West Michigan Environmental Action Council and with participation from Plaster Creek Stewards with General Motors, Grand Valley State University, Lower Grand River Organization of Watersheds, Kent County Department of Public Works and the Robert B. Annis Water Resources Institute.

Samantha Ramirez-Garcia learns about water bugs from WMEAC intern Brooke DeBaar

At themed water stations set up in the school’s Outdoor Learning Lab, students learned about the Plaster Creek Watershed, ecosystems, biodiversity, life cycles, and plastics and other pollutants.

It was all about taking care of their surroundings, said Jessica Vander Ark, director of environmental education for WMEAC. Even the district’s youngest students can be involved in taking care of the creek,  which flows through the ECC school yard.

“We think it’s so important that these students are finding out they have a creek they are partially responsible for. Their families and their actions all affect the watershed. We want to start teaching the whole idea of stewardship early… We want them to care about Plaster Creek and the Grand River Watershed.”

 

Gabriel Quintino examines creek water

Vander Ark takes fourth-graders stream sampling for macro-invertebrates each spring through WMEAC’s program “Teach for the Watershed,” which is run through a partnership with General Motors. Water Day extends teaching about the creek and watershed into earlier grades. “We wanted to find a way to do more and involve more of the students at Godfrey-Lee,” she said.

Preservation and Restoration

Plaster Creek Stewards, a program operated through Calvin College, hosts projects and outreach events to restore the creek, polluted over the years by stormwater runoff that brings contaminants into the creek and excessive sediments.

Program assistant Andrea Lubberts said part of their mission is educating students about how they affect the 58 square-mile watershed and how to reduce water runoff and contamination.

Devin Golden examines what’s in the water

Calvin and Godfrey-Lee Public Schools are both in the Plaster Creek watershed. “We feel very responsible for the health of the watershed because we live here,” Lubberts said. “If students understand that we all live in the watershed and we all affect someone else, we can start taking action.”

Second-grade teacher Lindsay Blume said the day ties in with science standards, including bodies of water and landforms. She said learning about those things right in the school yard is impactful.

“I like when they get outside and learn about the community and see what there is to explore. I hope they get out of it a better understanding of water, and more respect for it.”

Check out School News Network for more stories about students, schools, and faculty in West Michigan.