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Struthers students check out health of Yellow Creek
By EMMALEE C. TORISK
STRUTHERS
Rachael Leonard found Thursday’s excursion into the wilds of Yellow Creek Park a bit surprising.
Donning a pair of waders, the Struthers High School senior said that, for one, traipsing through the creek’s waters was “more slippery than you would think.”
The act wasn’t without purpose, however. Leonard was one of 13 students in Geoff Malcomson’s Advanced Placement Environmental Science class who spent the entire school day studying the health of the stream.
“It’s just to give them some awareness about their local environment,” Malcomson said. “Watching them fall in the water is kind of fun, too.”
The students — 12 seniors and one junior — arrived at Yellow Creek Park, a 76-acre gorge area in Struthers, at 9 a.m. Thursday and continued their work until 3 p.m. They stopped just once, and only to lunch briefly while sitting, perhaps reluctantly, on some moss-covered rocks.
Students ran chemical tests to determine properties of the water — including its concentration of nitrates, phosphates and dissolved oxygen — and sampled macroinvertebrates, or small organisms that lack a backbone, among other activities, to help determine the quality of the stream.
When students return to the classroom, they’ll produce a comprehensive report that discusses their findings and what they mean “for the health of the watershed,” Malcomson explained.
He noted that students enrolled in the AP Environmental Science course, which is in its first year at Struthers and offers material more challenging than that of a regular high-school course, must participate in one laboratory or inquiry-based activity each week.
As for Thursday’s field experience, Malcomson began planning it over the summer and said he “had a lot of support” from school administrators, as well as from external sources.
A grant from the AP Opportunity Program, for example, funded the purchase of new equipment for the experiments, such as chemical test kits, and textbooks totaling about $7,000. Another donation from the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments supported Malcomson’s training and additional supplies.
Malcomson said he’s thrilled to be able to give his students the hands-on experience, and is hopeful that he’ll be able to do so in the future, as well. Many of his students agreed.
Jacob Faulk-King, a senior, noted that he liked “using the equipment and seeing the wildlife” up close and personal. Thursday was the first time in years he’d been on a field trip.
Senior Ben Brammer, while working to pack up chemical tests with fellow senior Kara Thompson, added that though he and the others were “first-timers” with the experiments, he enjoyed “being out here.”
“[It’s nice] getting out of the classroom,” Brammer said.