Creek offers more than books

Girard, Youngstown and Campbell pupils also gauged the river's health.
By JOHN SKENDALL
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
STRUTHERS -- Teachers didn't have to crack a book Thursday to show their eighth-graders what makes a stream healthy and what impact local factories have had on the Mahoning River -- the pupils did the scientific tests themselves.
Theresa Laczko's homeroom at Struthers Middle School walked to Yellow Creek Park to take samples of the chemical and biological contents of Yellow Creek, which flows into the Mahoning River.
"It's pretty fun because we get to get out of class," said Josh Vlosich.
The eighth-grader is one of 600 Struthers pupils in grades five through eight who have spent two weeks learning how to protect and improve the Mahoning River watershed.
Each grade level focused on a particular environmental theme, all associated with the Mahoning River.
The learning took place in several classroom subject areas and included a bus tour of abandoned steel mills along the Mahoning.
"Steel mills brought all kinds of jobs here," Vlosich said. "Since machines had to be cooled by the water, the water is carrying those toxins."
"We need to work on the Mahoning River, the bottom where the toxins settle," eighth-grader Nathan Zappia said.
Two-week project
The pupils said they learned this and more as part of the two-week water quality project.
Zappia held a card that helped measure phosphate content in the stream water he had just tested. Pupils tested for phosphates and nitrates, a result of lawn and farm fertilizing, as well as water temperature, cloudiness, pH and dissolved oxygen, all of which are factors in a stream's health.
After making chemical tests to the water, pupils walked upstream to the biology section where they looked for macroinvertebrates using the "kick-seine" method. In layman's terms, they fished out a sample of the stream bed with nets and picked out whatever crawled.
"This one is a mayfly and this is a stonefly," Ted Smith of the Trumbull County Health Department said. "They're both very sensitive to pollution."
Low pollution
Having sensitive creatures living in the stream is good, volunteer instructors said. That means the pollution level is low.
The trip was the wrap-up of the two-week Mahoning River Education Project coordinated by the YSU Center for Urban and Regional Studies.
The project was made possible through Earth Force, a non-profit organization of General Motors that puts local plant employees in contact with the community to promote water-quality awareness.
In total, 3,000 fifth- through eighth-graders from Struthers, Girard, Youngstown and Campbell schools engaged in intensive study of their river system this spring.
"The thrust of this is to help our young people understand the place where they live," said Holly Burnett, project coordinator of the YSU Center. "It's an excellent example of the community coming together in a number of partnerships."
Field trips were provided by Mill Creek Park, the Mahoning Valley Sanitary District, Consumers Ohio Water Co. and local waste treatment plants.
Cutting pollution was the main theme of Thursday's field trip.
Particular concern
Pupils learned that the particular environmental concern in our area is the toxic sediment below the Mahoning River that collected from years of manufacturing.
Teachers and Struthers Middle School principal Vince Colaluca said pupils really enjoy the project, now in its second year, and retain more than they would in the classroom.