Letters of Introduction

Hawthorn Middle School

We are 8th Grade science students from Hawthorn Middle School located in Vernon Hills, Illinois, USA. Latitude – 42.14.214N, Longitude – 87.50.294W. Vernon Hills is a northern suburb of Chicago. Our school district is quite large with nearly 5000 students in Kindergarten through 8th grade. There are 550 7th & 8th grade culturally diverse students just in our building. We are studying water quality in science which is why we decided to join the Global Water Sampling Project and share our results with many different schools around the globe. We are looking forward to comparing data with all of you. The lake we are testing is in Independence Grove Forest Preserve which is in the Des Plaines River watershed. The lake was man made – it was a quarry at one time and has actually only been a lake for about 12 years. We drew our samples and conducted our experiments while on a field trip on September 28th and 29th. Our hypothesis is that the Independence Grove lake will be very clean because it is in a protected natural area with many plants, trees and wildlife surrounding it.

Roswell High School

Roswell High School AP Environmental Science Roswell High School 11595 King Road Roswell, GA 30075 Fulton County School System Teacher: Mrs. Williams Subject: AP Environmental Science October 11, 2005 We are the AP Environmental Science class at Roswell High School. Our school is located in Roswell, Georgia, USA, 34.2°N, 84.2°W. Roswell is situated in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and about twenty miles north of Atlanta. Our school is on the highest ground in our town, about 1,180 feet above sea level. Roswell is a moderately affluent town with a per capita income of $36,012 ($14,425 above the national average) and a population of about 80,000 people. The town has a total area of about 100km², 1.53% of which is water. Though not the most environmentally conscious city, we are generally above average. The situation is similar in our school. Roswell High recycles and advocates reusing materials. We will be testing the Chattahoochee River, one of Georgia’s main rivers. The Chattahoochee runs through part of Roswell and is generally known to be unsanitary. It is our hypothesis that the river will be contaminated, but not irreparably. Sincerely, The Roswell High School AP Environmental Science Class Summary of Data In this study, we observed the qualities of water in the Chattahoochee River. We were surprised by the overall quality of the river: it was not as bad as we had expected. In our observations, we determined that the dissolved oxygen, the pH, and temperature were all within an acceptable range for an ecosystem with extensive biodiversity. Although the inorganic solute levels were somewhat high, there was no evidence of great algal growth. In order to ensure that there are no future algal blooms, we must prevent the introduction of additional inorganic solutes. This can be achieved by locating the sources of pollution and working to prevent and reduce the contaminating agents. Thank-you Corrine Williams

Wiley Middle School

To the Global Water Sampling Project: We are students at Wiley Middle School and are on the Condor Team. Our school is located at 1400 Northwest Boulevard, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27104 or longitude -80.26456 and latitude 36.10281. Our school is an urban school near the center of the city. We have 800 students in grades 6-8. You can go to the school district web site at http://web2k.wsfcs.k12.nc.us/wileyms/ and find the Wiley web site. Look up the web site of our science teacher, Dr. Mansfield, to find out what we are doing. There are three teams in the 8th grade. Our team is the Condors, and we have about 95 students on our team. The teams have to take names related to flight, as that is the science theme for the school. The 6th grade does a special project on kites, the 7th grade does a special project on rockets, and the 8th grade does a special project on hot air balloons each year. The stream we are going to sample is called Peters Creek. It flows through the park next to our school. We're very curious and excited about what we may find out about this stream. Our hypothesis is that the stream will be of lower quality than a rural stream. It flows through the city and gets storm water runoff from streets and parking lots, neighborhoods, and a pasture at the Methodist Children's Home. So, it gets dirt, oil, fertilizer, and animal waste washed into it. We have seen trash in it and even a car. We may be surprised, as there are always fish in it when we walk by, but we think it could be cleaner. We'll send pictures later. Best regards from the Condors, Linzy Lemmons Jessica Stroot Shakaya Lenster Mary Chandler

Warren Academy

Dear fellow scientists, We are the Warren Academy Highschool class. There are only three of us in the entire school. You see, we are homeschooled, which means we are really just two families collaborating to learn Science in a fun way. Our teacher, Ms. Dana Warren, is related to all of us in some way. She has a special passion for Science, and somehow makes it interesting for all of us. Like a couple of weeks ago, the pet rat died and instead of letting the opportunity pass, our teacher let us dissect it. It was very educational:) We live in Colorado Springs, Colorado; 38:40:01N 104:41:36 W. Our City has a population of 360,890 people, besides all the tourist we attract with the Rocky Mountains, Indian cliff dwellings, and great western shopping opportunities. Our favorite things to do are snowboarding, hiking, and boating. Plus we all enjoy Tae Kwon Do. We love our community because it is beautiful, full of fun things to do, and so many people we care about live here. The pond we are going to test is part of the Fountain Creek watershed. Fountain Creek comes out of the mountains, through our city, then on to connect to the Arkansas River. Our hypothesis is that the water will be polluted, because our community does not care enough about what they do to the environment. Thank you, Warren Academy

Mill Creek Middle School

Mill Creek Middle School is located in Claremont, NC. We reside in Catawba County and are part of the Catawba River Watershed. Our latitude is 35 degrees and 40 minutes. Our longitude is 35 degrees and 67 minutes. Our school is located about one mile from the site we will be testing. It is called Murray's Mill. It is on the Catawba County Historic Registry. This mill once thrived as it ground grains for local farmers. We will be assessing the water above and below the dam to look for differences. We just learned that our school's waste water dumps into Balls Creek that flows directly to the mill. We have also seen (and smelled) the process our water goes through. It starts out black and smelly and appears very clear before it is dumped into the creek. Because of seeing our waste water processed and put into the creek, there are different hypotheses. Some students feel the water will be of good quality because of how well we process it. Others believe it will still be polluted and poor quality because we are dumping our waste water into the creek.

Hempfield School District

Hello People~ We are students from the Hempfield School District near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA. We are located at 40.7 N and 76.18 W. The school that we attend has 2400 students in grades 9-12. In our program most of our courses are online, but we do a lot of service projects. We monitor a stream monthly, two students traveled to New Orleans to help the hurricane victims, and we recently created a dvd for our school's field hockey team. We videotape most of our activities and make movies with the clips and stills. The stream we are monitoring is called the Little Chickies Creek. We are testing the water in two locations. Recently a very large parking lot was built near the stream, and therefore, we are testing the water above and below the parking lot to see if the parking lot is going to have an effect on the quality of the stream. We thought that the parking lot would have an effect on the stream, but so far our results show that the water above and below the stream is the same.

Messalonskee High School

Letter of Introduction Hello fellow Environmental Science students!   This is Mrs. Sammons fourth period class at Messalonskee High School. We are located at 131 Messalonskee High Drive Oakland, Maine. Our exact location is North 44’33.403 latitude and West 069’43.064 longitude. Our neighborhood is very friendly and welcoming. Our Elementary School, Middle School, and High School are all really close together. Our school has three floors and about 1,000 students. We all have lunch together for about fifty minutes. We have four periods a day and they are each eighty minutes long. Seniors get privileges to leave for lunch if they have good grades. Our school is named after an Indian stream that is five minutes away from our school,  which we took our sample from. There are many bodies of water around here. There are ten students in this class. They are Tiffany, Amy, Matt, Sam, Steven, Heidi, Heather, Collin, Jesse, and me Brandee.

O'Leary Junior High School

Rock Creek Park, Twin Falls, ID 83301 Water sample taken 10/20/05 Latitude: N 42.56519 Longitude: W 114.50183 We were out all day which was a sunny, warm day.. starting at 10.5 deg C at 9 am and warming to 20.3 deg C by 2:30 pm.  Macroinvertebrates: mayfly larvae, stonefly larvae, snails, cranefly larvae were found under rocks. Rock Creek flows from the South Hills through the city of Twin Falls to the Snake River.  The land uses vary from ranches, farms, small acreage/pastures, and industrial.