The movie A River Runs Through It focuses on a river in Montana and its effect on the people whose everyday lives are intertwined with it. Just like the movie, the Rivers Project is a whole school curriculum with the river theme running through it.
While the Great Flood of '93 has dramatically reminded us all never to take the river for granted, it has also pointed up a continuing need to learn more about the river and the environment in general. The Rivers Project, an interdisciplinary high school curriculum, is attempting to fill that need. This project allows science, social studies, and English teachers to integrate curriculum by approaching river study in a way that inspires young people to take action. Slowly but surely, the river, acting as a central theme that binds content specialists' teaching, has become a natural subject for students living close to its shores.
How The Rivers Project Flows
The Illinois Rivers Project, first funded by the Illinois State Board of Education's Scientific Literacy Grants Program, began in February 1990 as a pilot program that involved 8 schools with 24 teachers from the science, social studies, and English disciplines. The Rivers Project, now in its fourth year, has expanded to 180 high schools reaching from Cairo, Illinois, to Little Falls, Minnesota—including a Midwestern network of 22 schools from Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota; 17 schools in Indiana; and every major river in Illinois.
The project begins with a training session, with science, social studies, and English teachers working as an interdisciplinary team. Each Rivers Project team works to produce scientific data, to research social and cultural information, and to solve problems on its section of the river. All teams are trained in project procedure, conducting water tests, using computers to transmit data on the Southern Illinois Educational Network (SOILED NET), and writing for Meanderings (the student-authored book).
Teachers Dive In
- Chemistry provides for the collection of the data by the schools. Water quality kits are readily available and easy to use, and they make conducting the tests a relatively uncomplicated task. A computer program, which is being developed along with the printed material, will allow teachers and students to rapidly send data on SOILED NET and to access the total data for evaluation as needed.
- Biology is organized around stream monitoring. Students monitor and document the number of living organisms in a river, stream, or lake, and they compare their data to that in the chemical index. The variety of living organisms in a water environment, which may change as the water quality increases or decreases, can also be monitored and documented. Students examine this information on the computer, then share it with other schools through SOILED NET.
- Earth Science evaluates the physical features of a river system and provides clues to understanding the historical development within a local area. The impact of a river drainage system on water quality can be seen better when soil, slope, and flow are factored into a study. When future scholars study the effects of agriculture, development, and transportation on the river and water resources, the geology of an area will have great importance.
- Geography is built around the five themes of geography: location, place, human-environmental interaction, movement, and region. This unit helps students understand the relationship between the people and the rivers around which their lives are centered. The river gives form and reason to human migration and development in North America, and it has become the laboratory for our ever-changing society. Geographic study provides students with a wealth of people to interview and information to research.
- Language Arts is a source for the teacher to use as students write about their efforts for the river. Sections on political action, which give directions and suggestions for letter writing and other social actions, join those on poetry and creative writing. Interviewing is high on the list of skills to be developed since many of the articles for Meanderings are interviews. Newspaper archives, research libraries, courthouse records, and senior citizens introduce students and their teachers to the culture and history of their town or river. Teachers help to develop technical writing skills so that scientific data can be understood and shared more easily. Teachers of every discipline use this unit to give voice to the discoveries and ideas garnered by students through river study. Students, in turn, use radio scripts, puppet plays, newspaper articles, and recycling programs to give voice to the river and to their ideas.
Students Set Sail
- While doing their water quality testing, students at Jerseyville High School in Illinois continued to find high fecal coliform readings in nearby Elsah Creek. They found levels that were classified unsafe to swim and even unsafe for partial body contact, yet children were playing in the creek. Using information gathered through their scientific testing, the students launched a campaign to educate the residents of the community about the environmental hazards. When they were ignored, students wrote letters to elected officials and governmental agencies, finally getting the attention of the Jersey County Health Department. Two years later, the town is working to develop a sewer system that will abolish the unfiltered flushing of waste into the creek from area homes.
- Students from Aledo High School, also in Illinois, were called by a local country club to investigate a fish kill that had occurred at a pond at Hawthorn Ridge. Chemistry students ran various water quality tests and found that the fish kill was caused by water deterioration due to excess fertilization. The geometry class at Aledo was then asked to measure the greens at the country club to help the groundskeeper add the right amount of fertilizers to the greens.
- At Dundee-Crown High School in Carpentersville, Illinois, students found that construction debris had been dumped and bulldozed across a local stream. Huge chunks of concrete covered a 30-foot section, which caused municipal waste to pile up near the stream bank. They attempted to contact the property owner but were unsuccessful. The students called the EPA, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the County Soil and Water Conservation Department. The owner was directed to halt any further degradation and to file for the required permits. In fact, it cost the landowner around $5,000 to correct the damage. These students felt that justice had been served and that they were instrumental in preventing further problems.
- Students who live in Grafton asked fellow students in nearby Jerseyville High School to help clean up the shores of the Illinois River. When old signs had been washed away in a flood, and the town was unable to replace them, students in a shop class volunteered to build new ones as a class project.
- The mayor and city council of Henry, Illinois, found themselves under attack from an army of students from Peoria Notre Dame High School. During their English class, the students read an article from a local newspaper describing how some businesses and residences in Henry were dumping raw sewage into the Illinois River through a broken municipal sewer system. The students took offense at this assault on their water supply. They wrote to a local newspaper, the mayor of Henry, their state and national representatives, and to then-candidate Al Gore, whose office called back requesting more information. Students followed up these letters with an interview with the mayor and a visit to a city council meeting. As a result of the students' actions, the city changed its 10-year plan to clean up the river to one that will be completed in 1994. The students of Peoria Notre Dame High school now understand the power of the pen and the importance of informed citizen action.
The Rivers' Network
Once all the data are collected, and the letters and essays are written, the Rivers Project provides ways for the students to share their information and work.
The project's telecommunication system, SOILED NET, which is a part of the Free Educational Network (FRED NET) national system, allows students to transmit collected data and to view data from other schools. It also allows the project to transmit water quality data to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in Onalaska, Wisconsin. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency is using the students' data to report to Congress on the condition of Illinois' rivers, and in December 1992, students provided the United States Geological Survey with archived fecal coliform data on a specific section of the Mississippi River.
The computer system is also used in the publication of the student-authored book, Meanderings. This book allows students with varied talents and interests to display the products of their efforts—essays, interviews, and creative writings. Ten books, with more than 2,000 pages of students' river writings, have been transmitted via SOILED NET to be edited by project staff and printed by the Illinois Department of Energy and Natural Resources.
The River Watcher's Log, the project's newsletter, updates participants on the day-by-day happenings of the project that cannot be easily adapted to SOILED NET. Published four times a year, the Log combines student and teacher writings along with project announcements.
The Illinois Rivers Project Student Congress is one of the project's most successful efforts. Three Congresses have been held—the first in Quincy, Illinois, in April 1991, and the other two in Peoria, Illinois, in March 1992 and 1993. Students share their experiences with their peers through a conference setting. During the last Congress, 500 students representing 52 high schools made more than 90 presentations.
Rivers Project schools ask students to present to their local school board and to community service organizations. This outreach lets students practice skills learned in the classroom through the English or speech program. Rivers Project students also make presentations to adult conferences. Students have made presentations at the Governor's Conference on the Illinois River in Peoria, the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association meeting in Chicago, and at a Senior Citizen Dialogue held on the campus of Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, where young and old worked together to conduct water quality tests on water from the Mississippi.
Finally, Moline High School teacher Jim Gager organizes a yearly day trip for area Rivers Project schools on the Queen of Hearts, an excursion boat that travels the Mississippi. A boat-load of land-locked students compare water test results, sing songs, and, for the first time, realize that all of these little towns and schools up and down the river have an additional common interest other than sports scores.
The River Rolls On
As students become partners in a cause that requires involvement at all levels of skill and knowledge, the rivers can only benefit. The river is a place for students to be involved during and after school, and for the rest of their lives. It can become a tool for lifelong learning in which schools are just the beginning.
The river is a magical body of water. We can stare into it, watch it roll by on its journey to the sea, and take time to know it better. In return, the river will give back the knowledge and experiences that we otherwise might not have known. And maybe, just maybe, we can do enough to make our rivers clean and safe for our children and their children.
