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Water Quality in the Classroom; Students Make Suggestions to Improve Local Waterways In October, Hillsdale Water Quality Project Director Gale Garber
and Board Member Troy Wickham assisted
Greg Smith, Matt Kueser, and Amy Hughes,
Wheatridge Middle School Eighth Grade Science
teachers, with a field trip to local waterways to provide hands-on training of
stream monitoring. More than 250 students participated in the three-days of
field trips. For more information on setting these activities up in your classroom, contact Gale Garber at the Project office at 913-829-9414. The students’ last names and addresses have been removed from the letters. The letters are published with no other changes. Great Job students! 2004 Students' Letters
2003 Students' Letters
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber My name is Bethany. I’m from Wheatridge Middle School. A few weeks ago our science class went on the Water Quality field trip. I really enjoyed testing the water. We did 7 tests in all. Including PH, Nitrates, Phosphates, Water Temp., Turbidity, TDS, and DO. Some of the tests results were surprising. There were only 2 tests that were normal, PH and Water Temp. The other 5 tests were below normal. What was really shocking was the total amount of Phosphates there were only 28. We need to help our water systems we can do that in a lot of ways. You can monitor the streams. You can keep the streams cleaner by not littering and picking up any trash you see anywhere even if its not by the water because it can blow into the water. By doing some of theses things you can help make our water cleaner and purer. Thanks for your time I know you’re a busy person. Sincerely
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber My name is Maylin, I’m in 8th grade and I go to Wheatridge middle school. I enjoy science class a lot, and I personally enjoyed the fieldtrip our class had. In our fieldtrip we did different tests on the water. We did the PH test, nitrates, phosphates, turbidity, TDS, Water temperature, and others. During the fieldtrip we tested the water with our groups. I didn’t like the setting very much because it was very muddy. For my surprise it wasn’t that cold like I thought it was going to be. But I sure enjoyed it going to the Big Bull Creek. For the Ph test our class average was 7.44 (acids). In our whole class only 2 tests were normal and the rest were abnormal, below 80. Ph was one of them, and temperature change. Nitrates, turbidity, TDS, were normal, above 80. I think that we can help the water be more clean by not littering and throwing bad stuff in the water. I will like to thank you for your time. Sincerely
26 October 2004
Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber Hello, my name is Jeremy. I am 13 years old and in the 8th grade. I went to a stream near the Gardner Cemetery and took water quality tests there. Our class average was pretty abnormal. At least five tests were abnormal. Mr. Kueser said that totals above 80QV was normal, 80AV and below was abnormal. Total saturation was 58QV. Phosphates were approximately 35QV. Nitrates were 21QV. Turbidity was 63QV and TDS was 40QV. This can be fixed by cleaning up the stream and beautifying the surrounding area. Limit extreme diesel activity around the stream. Keep the surrounding area mowed and trimmed and supposedly put bushes around the stream. I thank you for your time and have a good day. Sincerely
26 October 2004
Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber My name is Jacquelyn and I am an eighth grader here at Wheatridge Middle School. I am 13 years old, and enjoy school, including science, tremendously. My sixth hour science class visited Little Bull Creek last week, where we then performed various tests on the water there. Things we tested were of this stature: pH, turbidity, nitrates, phosphates and dissolved oxygen. We also took the temperature of the water. The point of the trip was to understand how to go about doing the tests needed to receive accurate results. My group had everything up to beat. All of our tests were the most accurate, because we were the furthest group upstream. This makes our results more accurate, because the water hadn’t been fiddled with. When you’re downstream you get all of the dirt, chemicals and other debris in the water that you get your results from. Therefore you’re going to get a different reading that the people upstream. In our group our Q-Values were as follows: pH- 40, turbidity- 40, dissolved oxygen- 4, nitrates- 46, phosphates- 28 and temperature- 90. Our turbidity, dissolved oxygen, nitrates, and phosphates results were abnormal. To prevent this from happening you can go to the creek and study the surroundings. Thank you for your time, I greatly appreciate it. Sincerely
26 October 2004
Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber My name is Kristi. I am in 8th grade at wheatridge middle school. Me and my class went to a small stream by the new catholic church in Gardner. The stream was back by the rail road tracks behind the church. I really enjoyed going out there and learning about the water and the type of quality of our water around here. I also learned how to clean it and figure out if it is clean or not. The seam I was at had almost prefect water the temperature was an average or 12 degrees Celsius. The turbidity which is the cleanness of the water. Nitrates were 8 which is just about right. Nitrates was an average or 2 and the TDS or total dissolved oxygen was 300. We tested dissolved oxygen, water temperature, pH (acidity), temp change, total phosphates, nitrates, turbidity and TDS. Things that could maybe fix the problems in the stream is if it wasn’t right by the church that had been under construction and the tar and gas and all the other stuff that is in construction. Another one is if it wasn’t by the railroad tracks were all the trains go bye, and if it wasn’t under a bridge the curves so the water runs off when it rains and the car chemicals run in the water. I would like to thank you for your time to read my letter. Sincerely
26 October 2004
Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber I’m an 8th grader and my science class just recently went on a water testing field trip. This trip we went to a creek just outside of Gardner. We tested for all sorts of stuff that was in the water. A few examples of some of the tests that we did are, Dissolved Oxygen, Phosphates and Nitrates. We tested for many other things, too. All classes spent almost one week in their classrooms preparing themselves before they actually went out and tested the water. We finally proved to our teacher that we could handle the responsibility of testing water outside of the classroom. And the next day we went out to go test the water. My group was the farthest group upstream. When we did the Turbidity test we found out that the water wasn’t as clear as it was down stream the results for this test are 85. And we also found that there wasn’t as much Dissolved Oxygen. The percentage for Dissolved Oxygen was 45, so it’s below average. For PH the Q-Value is 92, so this test is normal!!! The Total Phosphates Q-value is 32; this test is below the average. The Nitrates (NO3) test came out as 60, so this test is below average, too. And the last test that we did was Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) this Q-value was also below average it was 60. Some suggestions on how these test can be changed is to just watch the Nitrates, Total Dissolved Solids, Dissolved Oxygen, Phosphates. You can probably do this by having more professionals go out and test the water more often, in order to change the levels of these tests. Thank you for you time and courtesy in reading all of the letters. I appreciate that you took the time to read my letter. And helping us succeed in science and in rich our minds in water quality. Sincerely
26 October 2004
Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber I am an 8th grader. All of the 8th graders went on a field trip to test water and water quality. I liked the trip. I had fun testing the water. We tested lots of stuff. A couple of things we tested were pH levels, TDS levels, Temperature and lots of other stuff I really don’t want to name. Most of the things that we tested were below 80%!! The saturation was 58%!! The pH levels were 88%. The Temperature Change was 80%. The Total Phosphates was 42%!! The Nitrates was 45%!! The Total Dissolved Oxygen levels were 30%!! And the most shocking of them al was the Turbidity levels they were 18%!! Keep up the good work with all the low levels!! I think that you guys are all doing a really good job in keeping the water clean! 5 out of the 7 tests that we did were below 80%!! And I don’t think that is how it is supposed to be. I think that if it is below 80% then it is not normal. I think that you should send more professionals to test the water more often so the water levels won’t be so low. Of course the level changes this year might be because of the big weather changes this year. And I know that you can’t control the weather! Thank you for reading all of our dear letters. We all thank you very much!! Keep cleaning and taking care of those creeks!! Sincerely
26 October 2004
Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber My science class went on a field trip to a stream right outside of Gardner. We tested the water and I thought that it was a fun project to do. We tested the pH, dissolved oxygen levels, water temperature, phosphates, nitrates, turbidity, and the total dissolved solids. The project was probably one of the muddiest field trip I’ve ever been on but there was oil, tires and railroad spikes in the water we tested. One thing that came out very abnormal and that was the turbidity had a bad number of 100 the dissolved oxygen levels were extremely low because the water wasn’t moving. There was also really bad erosion on the banks next to the railroad tracks and on the road side there were very big holes in the ground that you tripped in. I think to solve the turbidity we could plant aquatic plants in the stream to help the turbidity problems because the plants help catch the dirt and other debris. To fix the dissolved oxygen levels being so low your company could dig up some dirt that has fallen in and put it back on the banks so the water can flow again. To fix the erosion problem we cold put up a fence with pickets close together so water can get trough but dirt can’t. Sincerely
26 October 2004
Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber My science class took a field trip to a near by stream. We tested dissolved oxygen, water temperature, PH, site temperature, temperature change, phosphates, nitrates, turbidity, and TDS. The field trip was fun because we got to get out of school and we learned how to test water. We tested a part in the water with an abnormal phosphates which was 28, nitrates that was 46, and turbidity that was 40, we don’t really know what might have caused that, maybe the water movement, but you might want to send someone up there to check it out. Here are the actual percentages: dissolved oxygen: 5mg, water temp.: 12.75 degrees celsius, PH: 90, site temp : 12.75, upstream temp: 15 degrees celcius, temp change: 90, phosphates: 28, nitrates: 46, turbidity:40, TDS : 90. Like I said before, I think you should send some of your people up there to check and test out the water. What might have caused the abnormal percentages might have been the sewage from the animals, the river movement, since were were about 5 yards from the mouth of the river. Thank you for taking you time to read this letter. Sincerely
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber My name is Mika and my 8th grade science class took a field trip to a creek by the Gardner Cemetery. We tested the water quality. Our creek was kind of hard to get too and it was really muddy, but we all managed to get to it ok. All of our results were really low. For dissolved oxygen we got 8. The temperature of our water was 60°Celsius. Our PH level was 7.1. For phosphates we got 53. We found our creek had 2 nitrates. We didn’t get a chance to test TDS and Turbidity. From what are teachers tell us the creek we visited was not a very clean lake. I think that if there wasn’t so much trash in the creek it would probably be cleaner. The creek had a bike in it and some other trash. I think that someone should clean the creeks up. Thank you for taking time to read this letter Sincerely,
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber My name is Kayla and I am currently in eighth grade at Wheatridge Middle School. We went on a field trip a few weeks ago to a tributary of Big Bull Creek. We tested for Dissolved Oxygen, pH, Temperature Change, Phosphates, Nitrates, Turbidity, and Total Dissolved Solids. Here are our results: Dissolved Oxygen – 58 As you can see the stream that we went to was very dirty and did not have a lot of oxygen. Dissolved Oxygen was below normal. Our pH was good. The Temperature Change was normal. Phosphates, Nitrates and Total Dissolved Solids are way below normal. Turbidity was not even close to normal. If you could please take some time to check out Phosphates, Nitrates, Total Dissolved solids, and most of all Turbidity. Thank you for taking your time to ream my letter. Sincerely,
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber My eighth grade science class went on a field trip to one of Big Bull Creek’s tributaries to test its water quality. My group tested the water’s turbidity level, TDS (total dissolved solids) level, pH level, and dissolved oxygen level. We also checked on the level of nitrates and phosphates along with the air and water temperature. We found that, in the part of the creek that we tested in, the water quality was very bad. There were a couple of things that were abnormal. The TDS level was 21%, the turbidity level was 14.4%, and the phosphates level was 42%. I understand that because we were near a soy bean field that there would be a lot of phosphates in the water because of the fertilizer runoff, but if we could regulate how much fertilizer the farmer was using then maybe the phosphates level wouldn’t be so bad. I have a few suggestions for fixing the turbidity level. I think it would really help if we could plant more grasses around the creek so that they can slow down the erosion. It might also help if we set up nets around some parts of the creek, where erosion is really bad, to stop dirt and debris from entering the water. As for the TDS level, I think that maybe during the winter time, when it gets really icy, if we could regulate the amount of salt that is put on the roads near the creek. Thank you for taking the time to read my letter. Sincerely,
26 October 2004
Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber Hello my name is Brad and I am an eighth grader at Wheatridge Middle School in Gardner, Ks. Recently our classes have been studying watersheds, water, and water quality. On the 19th of October we went out to Big Bull Creek and tested the water for the following things temperature of air and water, the phosphates and the nitrates, dissolved oxygen, fecal coliforum, and TDS. Our group consisted of 5 people. We got our testing done pretty fast, but we made some mistakes like we accidentally measured the temperatures in Fahrenheit and no Celsius. Some of our results are off a little so I won’t give you all of them. For dissolved oxygen we got 7 mg/l, our water temperature was 12 degrees Celsius and our TDS was 480 mg/l. all of our classes had a lot of differences in their results. Our test that was abnormal was our total phosphates test. Something that could improve our water quality is by limiting a certain number of people on the lakes at a time. I think this because a lot of people throw things in the lake and it would be easier to clean the lakes up like this. Maybe once a month we should take nets and throw them out in the lake and get all the trash. I also agree with president bush on the “Polluter Pays” rule. That just says that if you get caught polluting then you will have to pay. Thank you very much for your time! Sincerely
25 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber I am a student at WMS. In our 8th grade science classes we have been studying about water quality. We took a field trip to Big Bull Creek, took some tests, and this is what we found. The TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) is a little high at 35 mg/l. I believe if we lay off the fertilizers for a while, we’ll have enough time for some intelligent person to create an effective non-pollutant fertilizer. The phosphates in the water were low too at only 28 mg/l. To help this, I think we should add a controlled amount of phosphates to the water so that the plants will continue to grow at a healthy pace. The phosphates are used to help the plants grow, that is why they are almost used up. Things that were normal were the temperature and pH level. Thank you for hearing/reading my suggestion. Sincerely
25 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber Hello, I am from Wheatridge Middle School. My name is Sammi and I participated in Mr. Kueser’s 8th grade science trip to test water quality in a local tributary of Big Bull Creek. We tested for several things such a PH levels, TDS (Total Dissolved Solids), fecal coliform, Dissolved Oxygen, Nitrates, Phosphates, and the air & water temperature. The results we found were this: PH levels resulted good, being normal, along with the Temperature Change. Total Phosphates, Nitrates, Turbidity, and TDS resulted abnormal. After learning about these for the past week or so we came up with ways to fix or at least help these bad results. Less fertilizers and salt (in the winter) could fix the low TDS problem. Turbidity could be fixed by getting less trash/pollutants in the water itself, and perhaps making a law or rule against polluting near water would help it a bit. . . I’ve tried my best to learn about water quality, and it was fun. Thank you for your time and patience to read this letter of mine and many others!! Thanks again
26October 2004 Dear Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Hello my name is Whitney and in Mr.Keusser class. We have been studying water sheds and testing .Our classes went on a really fun field trip. I enjoyed it very much .Ihad a really good group and we worked really well together. We were the farthest up stream so the water is dirtier than down stream. Some of the people were up stream like my friends and when we were done I went and visited and I looked at their results and there water was cleaner. I learned a lot of things like how many different tests their were and how to do them .I thought it was really fun. I got all the recording but I still learned how to do the tests. I liked the facial chloroform the best I told my group that so they let me do that test. Some of the things that were abnormal was our tempter is 11degress when we took it but we were up stream and the water was not moving. Our ph was 22 and our nitrates were 98. I think people could go down and clean the creek so the creek would be cleaner. I think we should have a heating system so the water could be warmer and more living thing could live there. Sincerely
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms.Garber Hi, my name is Morgan. In Science, we are learning about water testing. For a field trip we went to Big Bull Creek and did some water tests. Some water tests were pH, Dissolved Oxygen, Phosphates, Nitrates, Turbidity, and Total Dissolved Solids
As you can see the pH, Temp Change, and Turbidity turned out to be Normal. One thing that you can do to change the abnormal tests is to tell local businesses and homeowners to clean up trash outside. Thank you for letting me talk to you about water testing. Sincerely
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director
Dear Ms. Garber I am an eighth grader from Wheatridge Middle School. My fifth hour Science class tested water at the creek by the Gardner Cemetery. We got in the water and did the tests. It was a good experience for me to get involved. Out of all 6 tests that we did, only 4 of them were good results. The bad results were dissolved oxygen and phosphates. On dissolved oxygen, the q-value was 8. For phosphates, the q-value was 50. For plants and fish to survive properly, the water needs more dissolved oxygen. I believe that the water needs to circulate so that it churns the water and more oxygen is put into the water. To do this, maybe rocks need to be added to the creek. The best test result was nitrates with a q-value of 99. PH had a q-value of 92. TDS had a q-value of 370. The water temperature was 64°F. Over all, I think that the Water Quality field trip we took was a good way to learn about the water we use to drink, bathe in, cook with, and water our plants with. Thank you for taking your time and reading this letter. Sincerely
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber My name is Rochelle; I am in 8th grade and attend Wheatridge Middle School. I really thought the trip to the Prairie Wetlands was fun. Everyone attempted to get wet but instead of being disappointed they all seamed to be laughing over it. I also think I learned more and it was just a great opportunity to get out of school and find out interesting things. My group attempted to get confused on a lot of things but on most of it I think we knew what we were doing. On our dissolved oxygen test the results came out real weird so that on the chart it came out as a five. I think that was one of the tests that we got confused on. One of the other tests that came out pretty weird was the phosphates test to where on the chart it came out as a fifteen. All our other tests came around right about 80 so I think we did those tests right, hopefully. Well I think most of our problems could be fixed by paying more attention but if it had to do with the results being abnormal just because of the water I think it could definitely be fixed by not littering and finding ways to keep chemicals and fertilizers from entering the water. Thank you for your time. Sincerely
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber This year, we went to Big Bull Creek for water testing. Even though it was misty and got a little heavier which turned into rain, I think we had a good time overall. Since our field trip only lasted about an hour and a half, we didn’t get to do the BOD or fecal coliform tests. Therefore, we only did the simpler tests. These include the dissolved oxygen, water temperature, fecal coliform, pH, temperature changes throughout the water, phosphates, nitrates, turbidity, and TDS. One thing I noticed was that the nitrates Q- level was a 21! That is really low and should be fixed. Another thing I found really low was the Q- value of phosphates. It was a 21! If we don’t fix this, it will catch up with our supply of drinking water and eventually run out. Then, if possible, we’ll have to find a new way for our water shed to supply drinking water for us. A possible way to fix this, I don’t know! If there is a way to fix it, I think it should be done as soon as possible! Then like I said earlier everything will be easier on our future of drinking water supply. To conclude this note, I just wanted to thank you for all your time in reading all these notes. I still hope you have a plan for all this. If you do, our future will be saved and everything will be cheaper, knowing that our taxes will probably be raised and other things like that. An again, thank you. Sincerely
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber Hi! My name is Haley. I’m and 8th grader at Wheatridge Middle School. We went on a science field trip to test water quality. We went to Bull Creek. While there we tested the waters dissolved oxygen, water temperature, ph, phosphates, nitrates, turbidity, and TDS (total dissolved solids). We were going to test fecal coliform, but instead my science teacher, Mr. Kueser, tested it for us. One thing that happened which was funny, is I got pushed in by someone! Are classes average dissolved oxygen was 5.6. Are water temperature was 12 degrees Celsius. The pH was 7.38. Are total phosphates was 15.6. The nitrates were 2. The average turbidity was 8. And TDS was 300. The water temperature could be different if you took it on different days. Like the day we went it was really cold and rainy. But if we would have went on a sunny day the temperature would be higher. Not as cold. Thank you for talking time to reading this. And I really enjoyed the field trip. Even when I got pushed in. Sincerely
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber I’m in the 8th grade and we went on a water testing field trip in the Big Bull Creek area. We tested for a lot of things like dissolved oxygen and pH just to name a couple. When we tested for the pH levels my group got 7.8 units which is a base but it isn’t that bad of one. We also did a phosphate test and got 1.24 mg/l which is a bad thing. A few ways that you could fix them is that for the pH level you could maybe if this is possible take hydrogen ions out of the water till it got to 7.0 or just 7. For the phosphates test you could take some of the phosphates out of the water so there isn’t any algae blooms in the water which causes the dissolved oxygen levels to go down which is a bad thing to. You could also try to reduce the human waste amount and the industrial waste amount and we could not use so many fertilizers. I would like to thank you for the time you took out of your day to read this letter and I hope that everyone can work together to make our water quality better. Sincerely
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber Hi, my name is Terra, and I went out to test water with my class mates near the Gardner cemetery. We tested many different things like turbidity and dissolved oxygen. I think we all had a great time doing it and it was a new experience probably for all of us. Some of the things we came up with was dissolved oxygen was 8, water temperature was 60 degrees Celsius. The pH was 7.1, phosphate was 53, which was higher then the others in the class, and last nitrates was 2. The stream that our class went was kind of polluted. It had a bicycle in it and some trash but not a lot. But it is fixed by just having a group go up there to pick up trash. I want to thank you for your time reading all of these letters and mine. Like I said it was a great opportunity to go. Thank you. Sincerely
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber Hello my name is Jessica Prado and I attend Wheatridge Middle School. I didn’t actually go on the field trip. I was the leader, and I knew all of the tests. I had an emergency orthodontist appt. I heard from my group that they needed a lot of help. The dissolved oxygen levels seemed pretty low where my group tested. The Q value was only 58. The water should have more than that. As a matter of fact, none of my results came up normal except for the temperature. The overall results showed the water quality as bad. I suggest that a good way to add more D.O. to the water is to A) put some rocks in the stream to add points of splashing. B) add plants that create more oxygen than they take. Even though I didn’t go, I learned a lot about water quality. Thank you for your time and have a nice day. Sincerely
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber My eighth grade science class went on our field trip to a tributary in Big Bull Creek to test the water there. It was fun there, but it was freezing! A lot of animals live there that we ran into. The whole environment around the water was clean, and that made me happy. You guys are doing a wonderful job keeping the area clean. The Q-Value for our fecal coliform test came out abnormally. It came out with a Q-Value of 45, which is too much. I can only imagine where all of it came from! It was probably from all the snakes we saw. Anyway, I think that is a little gross, so I came up with some ways to fix it. To fix the problem of too much feces in the water, I have an idea, but I don’t know if it is possible. If it is, you should try considering it. Maybe you could get some kind of filter that cleans the water every other week. Maybe it would work, maybe not. Or, I don’t really like this idea, but you could get rid of some of the animals there by moving them to a different habitat. That could work, but I guess it would depend on what type of animal you’re moving, because some animals won’t survive in a different home. Some animals cannot adapt to a new environment. My ideas might not work, but if you and the people you work with could think of something, that would be great! Please, if you can, fix out water problem! Thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule to read my letter! Sincerely,
26 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director Dear Ms. Garber I go to Wheatridge middle school in Gardner. My science class went on a field trip to a creek in Gardner. We went to the Big Bull Creek. We did 8 tests. They are: Dissolved Oxygen, Turbidity, PH, TDS, Phosphates, Nitrates, Fecal Coliform, and water temperature. Our class had 3 different tests that were abnormal. Those 3 tests were: Dissolved Oxygen, Water Temperature, and TDS or Total Dissolved Solids. The percentage for Dissolved Oxygen was 5, For Water Temperature 35, and for TDS 60. The rest of the tests came out normal. I don’t know of many was to fix these problems, but here are some guesses. Maybe we could put some edging around some creeks so that dirt doesn’t fall in as much. We could also find a way to keep people from throwing trash in the water. I would like to thank you for reading this letter. Also for taking your time to read our letters and taking them into consideration. Sincerely
25 October 2004 Ms. Gale Garber, Executive Director
Dear Ms. Garber I’m Brittany and my science class went to test water at Little Bull Creek. We tested for Dissolved Oxygen, TDS, phosphates, nitrates, pH, turbidity, and water temperature. After testing my class had these Q-Value results Dissolved Oxygen: 58, water temperature: 58, pH: 88, temperature: 93, phosphates: 33, nitrates: 47, turbidity: 28, TDS: 30. As you can see from these results that phosphates were at a bad level as were nitrates, turbidity, TDS. One of the water tests that seemed quite abnormal was the TDS test some things we could do to help stop this problem would be to put some sort of thing that would stop the salt run-off from roads. Others would be to let the public know about these problems so they can limit there salt use. By maybe giving pamphlets and public notices also by asking companies that dump the salt to limit salt a little. Another test that was abnormal was the phosphate test. Things we could do to limit phosphates in our water would be to put “no dumping” signs around the water areas. Thank you very much for your time for listing to my letter and hearing about what my science class did and to my ideas. Sincerely
04 November 2003 Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Garber Enclosed you will find a few letters from some eighth grade students who attend Wheatridge Middle School. A month ago, the students took a field trip to Little Bull Creek to perform some water quality tests with their science teacher, Mr. Greg Smith. The students were very excited to be able to take a field trip and then come back to school and examine their results. They found a lot of great things about the quality of the water, and also a few things that could be improved upon. Part of their grade was to think of some solutions on how they could make the water even better. In turn, Mr. Smith and I decided to make this an across the curriculum assignment, resulting in these enclosed letters you will find. The students worked hard on them and are very excited to see what kind of a response they may receive. Thank you for your time. Sincerely Stacy
Audsley
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Garber My name is Ali . My class went to Little Bull Creek. On our trip we tested water quality. We checked the creek for Dissolved Oxygen, Fecal Coliform, pH, BOD, Temperature Change, Phosphates, Nitrates, Turbidity, and Total Solids. We found that the creek's Fecal Coliform, Phosphates, and Total Solids had bad results (they were to low). The Fecal Coliform had a water value of 59 (9.4%). The Phosphates had a water quality of2 (0.2%). Last, the Total Solids had a water quality of 20 (1.4%). Well, the Turbidity was bad too, but you can't help that. I suggest, to help the Phosphates, you could put some more phosphorus in the water (but just enough). To help the Fecal Coliform and Total Solids you should put some more plants in the water, to help balance it out. Thank you for your time. Sincerely Ali
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Garber My name is Shana. I went to Little Bull Creek with my class to test the water quality. I had fun, especially seeing all the species that live in the water. At the creek we tested the turbidity, dissolved oxygen, fecal coliform, pH, BOD, temperature change, phosphate, nitrate, and total solids. Phosphate, fecal coliform, and total solids were the abnormal results. Phosphate had a percentage of .2%. Fecal coliform had about 36 colonies and a percentage of 9.1%. Total solids had a percentage of 1.4%. Since the creek was below a road, you could put up signs reminding people what will happen to the c reek if they pollute. Species live in the water and fecal coli form could kill them because of pollution. To stop the animals from using the creek as a waste area, you could put up fences or build another water area for them to use the restroom in, so the feces won't go into the creek water. Fertilizers cause phosphate. If the farmers would not use too much manure or harmful fertilizers, then the stream will not have as much phosphate. You could suggest a specific brand or ways to fertilize crops to farmers so it doesn't run down into the stream. Thanks for your time! Sincerely Shana
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Garber Our school, Wheatridge Middle School, went to Little Bull Creek for a water testing field trip. The point of the field trip was to learn about how different chemicals/bacteria's affect tile quality of our water. We tested for these different chemicals/bacteria's: Dissolved Oxygen, Fecal Coliform, pH, BOD, Temperature, Phosphates, Nitrates, Turbidity, and Total Solids. These all contributed to our final Water Quality Index. Here
are the percentages of our tests: After completing all the tests we graphed them to figure out what the percentages were. As you can see from the graph above they all look fairly good but these are the ones we are most concerned about:Fecal Coliform, Phosphate, Turbidity, and Total Solids. Here are some possible ideas on how to fix the problem. To fix the fecal Coliform level you can try and keep animal waste away from the watershed. To fix the Phosphates level you can try and keep bomitiflil amounts of fertilizer away from the watershed. To fix the Turbidity level you can try and keep pollutants out of the water. To fix the Total Solids level you can try and keep pesticides out of the water. Thank you for taking the time to read this letter I appreciate you taking your time out of your work to do so. Once again THANK YOU! Sincerely, Samantha
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Garber
My name is Lindsay and I am an eighth grader at Wheatridge Middle School in Gardner, Kansas. On Tuesday, October 7 our science class went on a field trip to Little Bull Creek in Edgerton. Though I didn't get to go on the field trip I do have the results from the tests our class did. We tested the water's dissolved oxygen, fecal coliform, pH, BOD, temperature change, phosphates, nitrates, turbidity, and total solids Most of the results we got were very good, but there were three that came up abnormal; fecal coliform, phosphates, and total solids. The fecal coliform came up at 57%, the phosphates came up at 20%, and the total solids came up at 20%. All three of these are poor results and we should try to put stricter laws on the amount of waste and fertilizers that get into the stream. One way that you could do that is to regulate the amount of fertilizers that farmers are allowed to use. These fertilizers and pesticides are responsible for the high amount of phosphates in the water. Since fecal coliform levels are raised by animal wastes, one way to bring it down would be to fence off the stream in most areas so that fewer animals could get to it. You would still need to leave an opening so that they could get to water. To reduce the total solids in the water you should make sure that only a limited number of people are allowed near the stream so that they don't cause a lot of dirt to fall into it. Also make sure that people are always fmed for littering in the stream. This would keep both phosphate and total solid levels down. Thank you for taking time to read my letter and I hope that some of my ideas can be helpful of are already being carried out.
Sincerely Lindsay
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Garber
My name is Mandi, and I am 14 years old. In Mr. Smiths 8th grade science class, 2nd hour, we went to site 2 at Little Bull Creek to test the water. We tested pH, Fecal Coliform, Phosphates, Nitrates, Dissolved Oxygen, BOD, Temperature Change, Turbidity, and Total Solids. The Fecal Coliform test we took came out low, the Q-Value was 55. Also the phosphate levels were ofI, the Q-Value on that was 2. The turbidity Q-Value was 41, and the TDS Q-Value was 20. I have a suggestion for what could be done with the Fcoli levels; if there are any farms near by you could warn them about the Fecal Coliform levels and give them suggestions to help. Such as, making some kind of sewer to prevent leakage from going off the farm. Or if there are any sanitary connections near by, they could be leaking. I hope you like my ideas and put them into consideration. Thank for taking the time to read this letter And I hope these levels at Little Bull Creek can be fixed. Sincerely Mandi
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Garber Hi! My name is Megan, and I'm from Wheatridge Middle School. When our class went to the creak, we had so much fun. Learning about water quality. We got to catch a whole bunch of stuff, and learn new things at the same time. It was quite a trip. I know our field trip was very educational in our behalf.. We went because it was a unit in our required studies for this year. Which is a good thing, because we will probably end up using this information in the future. One thing that carne out normally in these tests was our PH levels. It was very interesting. When we carne back we found out that it was one of the most normal tests we ran in our group. We found very less fecal coliform and it was interesting. We also got to see animals like fish and frogs and minnows. I learned one thing very interesting about frogs and the water. That if you have frogs in a stream or a pond that it means it has good quality for the water. One thing that was kind of poor in your streams, would be like how much trash and wastes and I also found beams in the water. And in my opinion it would be that they are hurting the animals in the water. But I don't want to complain or anything so I won't take up anymore of your time. Maybe you can help that by picking up trash and making it a nicer place to be . Just a thought. Thank you for taking this time out of your working time to read my letter I hope it helps, with what you wanted to know. So I thank you again you were a great help and hopefully we can come back again this year cause it was fun. Yours truly, Megan
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Gale Hi, my name is Kenzie and I go to Wheatridge Middle School. We took a fieldtrip to Little Bull Creek to test the water quality in the creek. The results of our testing were that the Fecal Coliform was too high for its' normal standards. We found that the Percentage of the Fecal Coliform was 9.4%. We also found that the Total Dissolved Solids were 1.4% which is not the levels there supposed to be at. I have a few suggestions to change the problems of Fecal Coliform and Total Dissolved Solids. My suggestions are to watch what kind of chemicals people are using for their property. Another one of my suggestions is to not let a lot of animals too close to the stream to prevent the Fecal Coliform level from being too high. I thank you for taking the time to read my letter Sincerely Kenzie
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Gale Gardner The field trip we took to the creek was to determine the conditions of the creek. We took tests over the following: dissolved oxygen, fecal coliform, pH, BOD, temperature change, phosphate levels, nitrates, turbidity, and total dissolved solids. The phosphate levels were really high. They were 45 mg/l, q-value 2, and percent .2%. Hire a cleanup crew to come out and shock the water with chlorine and replace the stream with bugs and fish. Replace the creek bed with new rocks and make damns to evenly dispute the water. Then close the river off for awhile until it gets its strength back and can maintain normal water readings. I appreciate you giving me the time to talk to you and discuss how the creek is performing. I would love to talk to you again and go back to the creek. I have no problem with researching ways to have clean streams. I hope this encourages you in your studies. Thanks! Sincerely, Anthony
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Garber My name is Eric I am an 8th grader at Wheatridge Middle School in Gardner. I recently went on a science field trip to Little Bull Creek to test water quality. The tests we did on the water were Dissolved Oxygen, Fecal Coliform, pH, BOD, Temperature Change, Phosphates, Nitrates, Turbidity, and Total Dissolved Solids. Of all of the tests, we found that there is a really bad percentage of Phosphates. The results of the Phosphates came back as 45 mg/L. I transferred that into the Q-Value which was 2. Finally, the final percentage of the Phosphate levels was .2%. Algae only need a small amount of Phosphates to grow. Too many Phosphates in the water can result in algae blooms and lower Dissolved Oxygen levels. I came up with some solutions to fix the high levels of Phosphates: 1) Locate to see if there is any broken sewage lines up stream. 2) Reduce the number of industrial businesses dumping waste from their business into the water. 3) Work with farmers within the watershed of the stream and its tributaries to reduce the amount of fertilizers they put down or have them not plant as close to the streams. Thank you for taking your time and reading my letter. Sincerely Eric
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Gale Hi, my name is Eric, my class went to Little Bull Creek to test the water quality. Here are some of the things we tested that came abnormally; the Fecal Coliform was not very good neither was the phosphate level. The fecal coliform level was 36 colonies per 100 milliliters, or 9.4% of the overall water quality index. The phosphate level was 47.7 milligrams per liter and 0.2% of the overall water quality index. Both of these influence water quality and are directly related to waste byproducts of humans and animals. To correct these problems it may be helpfil to have better rules in place that do not allow high levels of either fecal coliform or manmade phosphates to drain into a stream or lake. Another way of keeping the levels low is to build a dam across the creek that would hold the high levels of these pollutants. The pollutants could then be hauled away. The cost for stopping these pollutants could be shared by all the people who benefit from the stream or the lake where the stream ends. This includes people that use the lake to boat, fish, hunt, and use the water for a drinking supply and those who pollute it. I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my letter to you. It was a lot of flin checking the water quality and it was very interesting. Sincerely Eric
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Garber Hello. My name is Alyssa. I took part in a field trip to Little Bull Creek to test the water. Are class took 9 different tests. Six of the test had good results. But the other three had low Q-Values. One of the tests that had a Q-Value below 60 was Total Dissolved Solids. The data that we gathered was 560 mg/L. Twenty was the Q-Value. After we multiplied 560 by .07 the total was 1.4%. Phosphate also had a low Q-Value. Its Q-Value was two and the total was .2%. The last test that has low was Fecal Coliform. Its Q-Value was 7 and the total was 9.1%. Are Overall Water Quality Index was 69.3% We could improve the water for the Phosphate by getting out some of the human wastes and food wastes out of the water. We should put a limit of how much fertilizer people can lay down so that it doesn't affect the phosphate levels. There should be somewhere where people can discard of old house detergent instead of dumping it in the water. The plants should be able to get just enough phosphate and not to much. Thank you, for your time. I hope that you can help improve the water so the animals will stay around. Thank you again for reading this letter. Sincerely Alyssa
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Garber My name is Brandon. I'm thirteen years old and in and eight grade. I go to school at Wheatridge Middle School in Gardner, Kansas. On Wednesday the fifth, I went on a field trip to Little Bull Creek for a science field trip. I'm going to tell you about what we found out. There were several good things about the creek. The D.O. and the pH levels were very good. The BOD and nitrates were also good. There were just a few things that were an abnormally wrong with the creek. There was too much Fecal Coliform in the water. There was also too much phosphates and Total Solids in the water. The Q-value for Fecal Coliform was 59 and the percent was 9.4%. Next was the phosphate. The Q-value for that was2 and the percent was .2%. To help the phosphates would be by not having the cars going over the highway not to leak gas, oil, antifreeze, and other wastes. Another way would be by not laying down as much fertilizer and other human and animal wastes into the river. Now to the Fecal Coliform. It doesn't need many changes but a few things. You could get new fencing around the creek so that animals couldn't get too close to the river. I would like to thank you for reading my letter and I hope it would help you to keep this creek clean and healthy. Sincerely Brandon
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Garber My name is Nina and I attend Wheatridge Middle School. My science class traveled to Little Bull Creek and did several tests to check the water quality. The overall water quality index was 65.7%, which isn't the best. There were three things that we tested that came out abnormally. One of the several tests we performed was the fecal coliform test. The Q-value carne out to be 59. This value is too low and should be examined closer to find possible ways to raise this value. The phosphate level was 2%, which is very low. Another test performed was the total solids test. We calculated and came out with 1.4% of total solids. Little Bull Creek is located right under a highway bridge. Of course, gas leaks from automobiles and is washed down into the creek, which can affect the phosphate level. Also, human and animal waste and fertilizers can cause the phosphate level to be off. So, if we can find ways to prevent these things to be carried into the creek, that'll be a great help. To increase the Q-value of the fecal coliform, we could put in new fencing to block off the animals and that' 11 prevent them to drop off their waste in the creek. Putting up signs saying not to pollute could also help. The trip was very beneficial for me and as well as my classmates. I learned a lot and arn now aware of what I can do to improve water quality. Thank you for your time and I hope you can take my ideas into consideration. Sincerely Nina
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Garber Hi, my name is Sara. I'm an eighth grade student at Wheatridge Middle School in Gardner, KS. We went on a field trip to The Little Bull Creek in Edgerton, KS. We went there to test the water quality. We gathered all the data in our groups, then when we got back to school we averaged all of our data together. After we had it all averaged we found out that the fecal coliform, trubidity, and the total solids were to high. The q-value for the fecal coliform is 55 and the percent is 8.8%. The q-value for the trubidity is 41 and the percent is 33%. The q-value for the total solids is 20 and the percent is 1.4% I think that the fecal coliform could be put into the water by sewage. So to fix that they need to either cut down on the sewage or stop draining it into the Creek. If there are cows or some other kinds of animal around maybe put a fence up so that less of the animals will go down there? To fix the tiubidity you could they could not throw the trash into the water by maybe putting trash cans by the highway or having a clean up crew clean up the creek every month. To fix the total solids I would not put as many chemicals on the grass or the highway for the rain to wash them into the creek. I would just like to thank you for taking the time to read my letter. I hope that something might be done in the future to prevent this. Thank you again. Sincerely Sara
Ms.
Gale Garber Dear Ms. Garber Good morning my name is Jason. I go to Wheatridge Middle School. I went on a water testing trip to Little Bull Creek with my science class with Mr. Smith. We enjoyed getting to test water and find out how clean our local streams actually are. We tested many thing such as Dissolved Oxygen, Fecal Coliform, Ph, Temperature Change, Phosphates, Nitrates, Turbidity, and Total Dissolved Solids One thing I found abnormal in your streams was that your Nitrate levels were 9.8 percent and Fecal Coliform levels were 9.4 percent. These could be fixed by not polluting the water and not letting so many animals around the stream. If people were just not as absent minded maybe we wouldn't have a problem with some of the problems we already have. Such things as fences and barriers would be a good way to keep innocent animals from doing something that they don't even know they're doing Thank you for your time. Sincerely Jason | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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