Students schooled on importance of wetlands

By AUBRIE GEORGE | The Moorestown Sun

If sixth-grade science students at Moorestown Upper Elementary School didn’t know much about wetlands, including the fact that a stormwater detention basin — an essential function of wetlands — exists right on their school grounds, they do now.

Earlier this month, about 350 sixth-grade science students participated in a two-day program of lectures and hands-on science experiments aimed at teaching them about the essential functions and importance of wetlands.

The annual program, called “Wetland Wonders and More,” is funded by a grant from State Farm, allowing the school to set up nine stations, each designed to teach students about a different function of the wetlands. At each station, volunteers from the Pompeston Creek Water Association, Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge and the state Department of Environmental Protection as well as parents and Moorestown High School students lead UES sixth-graders in a lecture and experiment pertaining to a wetlands function.

“I think it’s a really great program and I think it’s a really good way for the kids to connect to their environment because there is not much of that going on these days. Kids spend a lot of time in sports and on computers.” Debbie Lord, who started the program alongside UES science teacher Linda Tausz-Hannon six years ago, said. “It’s really important for our kids to understand the land and water that support us, and they get that through this program, to some extent.”

Lord, an environmental science educator, member of the Pompeston Creek Watershed Association and mother of one of Tausz-Hannon’s former students, coordinates most of the stations. Lord puts together lesson plans for each station and trains station presenters.

Stations this year included lessons on bioaccumulation, macro invertebrates, ground water, common water, wetland filters, enviroscape, storm water detention basins and the importance of wildlife and their habitats.

The station on stormwater detention basins allowed the students to visit the one located at their school and participate in a scavenger hunt to find organisms that live in it.

Cindy Pearson, known as “The Turtle Lady,” from the Pompeston Creek Watershed Association, brought a variety of turtle species to teach students about the effect humans have on turtles and the important roles that turtles and other creek critters serve in the ecosystem.

The only station Lord doesn’t coordinate is one where representatives from Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge bring various animals each year, including owls, snakes and hawks, she said.

Of the 350 participating students, about 30 of them were given the opportunity to serve as “Wetland Ambassadors,” venturing to a stream at Swede Run where they collected macro invertebrates to bring back and show other students.

“Those are the small creatures that live in the stream that don’t have a backbone,” Lord said. “Things like crayfish, insect larva and leeches. Those things are used by the EPA and the DEP to assess water quality in streams throughout the country.”

Students were introduced to the ways that environmentalists use those organisms to detect how clean and healthy stream water is. When it came time for the rest of the students to visit the macro invertebrates station, wetland ambassadors were in charge of helping classmates recognize the creatures and organisms they had learned about. Wetland ambassadors were also responsible for reporting what they learned on the trip.

To accompany students along their journey, each was given a journal that described the objectives of each station and included questions for the students to explore during their visit.

Lord said the program aims to teach students the relationships between wetlands and water resource, the concept that all living things are connected, that diversity of organisms is necessary to maintain healthy ecosystems. She said it’s also important for children to see how much water we waste every day,

“Everything we do on the land affects our water resources,” Lord said. “We hope that children learn how they can make a positive difference in protecting preserving and improving their environment.”