Dear Participants,
Our school is Margaret Mead Junior High School and it is located in Elk Grove Village, Illinois which is about 25 miles northwest of Chicago near O'Hare International Airport. The school has an enrollment of about 630 seventh and eighth grade students and is located in the middle of a quiet suburban neighborhood. We are one of five junior high schools in Schaumburg Township School District 54. Our team is called The Millenium Magic and is made up of 150 students who have the same team of teachers for math,science,language arts,social studies,and physical education. At Mead the school day begins at 7:30 and ends at 2:15. After school our students participate in many activities and sports. Our interscholastic teams include track, cross country,basketball,volleyball,and wrestling. Also, we have many clubs such as Student Council,A-V, intramurals,community service,partners club,and Life Skills.
In our science class we will be testing the water in a stream which borders our school property and passes through a small wetlands area. The stream is part of the DesPlaines River Watershed which at present is considered to have More Serious Water Quality Problems. In other words, the quality is well below state and tribal water quality goals. We hope to determine to what extend,if any, our neighborhood is contributing to these problems and if so how we can help remedy them. We are integrating our water testing project in science with the studying of governmental regulatory agencies in social studies. Students will determine what recourse citizens have with these agencies toward improving water quality. We are very excited about examining the water quality in our neighborhood stream and reporting our data and conclusions to the Project.