Thursday, December 10, 2009

Shed

On December 8th and 10th, members of the WET team, Dustin, Christopher , Samantha helped by Natalie , Tyler , Rachel and Dylan constructed a shed at Musselman High School. They built the shed to store all of the tools we’re going to need this year for all of our projects, as well as so we can access them at any particular time we need them.
--Sam

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Team WET

10-20-09
Shawnee Girl Scouts (now part of Nations Capital) is sponsoring WET clubs, now called WET at Musselman High School. Danielle Amistadi is in the process of organizing WET as a school club. She is preparing club passes, roster, posting notices for teachers, getting approval with the principal, and publicizing the club. There are about 40 students enrolled. Attendance after school has been scant; consequently, Danielle has made all the arrangements to have the group meet during club days as well as occasionally after school on Tuesdays. Shawnee provided green tee shirts; the club is waiting on paint supplies to decorate the shirts. More information will follow.

AGW launches!

10-20-09
Frank Rodgers (Cacapon Institute) delivered an introduction to over 350 students; his presentation included an introduction to watershed dynamics, best management practices, the e-school on the Cacapon Institute's website, and an overview to Musselman's AGW program. Frank gave presentations each class period, all day. Mr. Hartman, Ms. Raines, Mr. Rickman, Mrs. Stevens, and Mrs. Waterworth participated in this event. The program was well received. Musselman High is creating Project Based Learning (PBL) models for the watershed curriculum. This presentation serves as the "entry event", which is part of the PBL model.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Back to School!

AGW met on Wednesday, August 19th to meet with the partners and plan. Our newest partner is Lowes! Jamie Brown is the store representative met with Brenda Waterworth (Science Department Chair), Cindy Raines (HSTA), Frank Rodgers (Cacapon Institute), Jane Barvir (Girl Scouts), Ginny (DEP), and Deb Stevens (Project Manager). The group made plans to launch the education, remediation, and outreach program early in September; they planned an opening assembly for the first week of October to coincide with Musselman's homecoming festivities. Brenda has already scheduled a trip for two Honors Biology classes to train at The Mountain Institute in watershed dynamics. Buffy Wink, the environmental science teacher, has plans for her three environmental classes to create a "white-out" at MuHS. Her classes will measure and paint the roof white. Buffy plans to document the process so it can be replicated. Brenda and Deb are also taking part in a Watershed Dynamics program with West Virginia University; they plan to incorporate the AGW program into this program. The MuHS department is off to a good start!

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Picasa is updated!


Today, we sorted and loaded a variety of photos to Picasa to document some of the work the students have performed this past year. Key words are: Apples Get Wet, Apples Get Wet Album Two, Baltimore Aquarium, Hot spots, Tree planting, Water Testing, Mill Creek Intermediate Enviroscape Watershed Training, and Green Roof.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Press Release

Press Release
Update to AGW grant
Apples Get Wet (AGW) is a watershed study. The Musselman Science department has earned three grants this past summer from Ecolab, The Norcross Wildlife Foundation, and The Toshiba Foundation to fund this project. Additionally, AGW has several partners: The Eastern Panhandle Soil and Water Conservation District, the Cacapon Institute, Friends of Opequon Creek, (Kiersten Bivens delivered an informational slideshow to this group March 3rd.) and the Shawnee Girls Scouts. The Health Science and Technology Academy (HSTA) and the Conceptual Chemistry class are spear-heading the project. Students are collecting data, marking “hot spots” on the School property, learning about watershed dynamics, and participating in a Stream Cleaner activity with the Cacapon Institute. Sara Wurtenberg, with the Eastern Panhandle Soil and Water Conservation District, has brought in an Enviroscape watershed model to perform class demonstrations and to instruct students how to present the model. HSTA and the Conceptual Chemistry class have three upcoming dates (3-23, 3-30, and 4-14) to travel to Millcreek Intermediate to teach fifth graders watershed dynamics with the Enviroscape model.
Frank Rodgers, with the Cacapon Institute, delivered a slide-show overview of watershed dynamics in the fall; he works directly with HSTA and the Conceptual Chemistry class approximately twice a month. Frank has helped annotate Google Earth with Musselman’s “hot spots”. Frank is in the process of locating a landscape architect to work with Musselman’s CAD class to develop a plan for a rain garden at the School. Presently, the Conceptual class in participating in a mediated discussion board, called Stream Cleaners along with about three hundred students from Virginia and West Virginia. Cloe Raines, a Musselman student, has created a model “green roof” as a science fair project. Cacapon, Opequon, and Shawnee have promised to help with some funding to help with its installation. Frank has already invested several hours working directly with Musselman students to help launch AGW well in this its first year and to create a School survey to serve as the basis of an on-going watershed study.
Jane Barvir, with Shawnee Girl Scouts, is sponsoring a WET team at Musselman. There are about fifteen interested students who meet after-school on Thursdays. This program allows any Musselman student an opportunity to participate. Students who log thirty volunteer hours related to the grant goals may earn a trip to the Baltimore Aquarium in May. Shawnee is underwriting an Enviroscape model, buses for several field trips, and the cost of substitutes to cover for teachers chaperoning field trips. Shawnee has established WET teams in schools both in Virginia and West Virginia.
There are several upcoming dates planned; March 23rd, March 30th, and April 14th, students will use the Enviroscape model to teach Millcreek fifth graders watershed dynamics. On April 20th (April 24th is the rain date.), students will install a rain garden in celebration of Earth Day. On April 28th, HSTA and Conceptual students will participate in a stream study. (This is also part of the TMI trip HSTA took in the fall.) Additionally, there are plans for students from the Middle School and a primary school to bring students to Musselman for watershed instruction.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Updates!

2-13-09
Frank Rodgers worked with the Conceptual Class on Tuesday in the computer lab. The kids explored the updated map on the Cacapon website and completed an on-line survey to determine their watershed background. On Wednesday, the class read several articles regarding watershed terms and issues. Sara Wurtenberberg brought the Enviroscape model in Thursday to go over watershed dynamics. My goal is for the Conceptual class to be able to teach other classes the concepts using the Enviroscape model. These students have already exceeded my expectations.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

More computer work...

2-10-09
Frank Rodgers, with Cacapon Institute, came today to work with the students in one of the School's computer lab. Frank has updated the web site to reflect some of Musselman's data. The Conceptual Chemistry class looked at the map with the other schools participating with Cacapon and completed the site's survey. After class, Mr. Rodgers met with Mr. Brock to explore the possibility of including the CAD class to complete some of the landscape plans. Today, T.J., Megan, Tessa, Marisol, and Tiff also went did a campus clean-up. Lastly, Tessa spent time outside taking more photos of "hot spots" for the cacapon website.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Student Volunteer Time Sheet

Here is the time sheet for you to check on the hours logged.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pi2QovgVZ56fbRCCZ96DoBw

Student Logs

Add your hours logged to the spreadsheet posted as a comment with your first name; a student will keep track of the hours in a spreadsheet.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Slide Shows!

The kids are psyched! A local environmental organization has invited the students to present their project. The students are completing powerpoint slide shows to present in class this week. Then, each group will be prepared to go out and speak. A team of volunteers and teacher's aides are coming in Thursday to critique the presentations. My hope is for the kids to get a little practive and feed-back before taking their show on the road.

Student comments

The Conceptual Chemistry class is directing the watershed study. Their assigment is to comment about the experience. Here are some of their remarks.
Sam-The students believe that Apples Get Wet sounds a little seamy there is a contest to make up another name.

Samantha- A “hotspot” where there is pollution.

Stephen- Our class looks for places where they have water collected so we can see its depth.

Presley- A watershed is where water collects and includes lakes and streams.

Kirsten- Apples Get Wet is a group of Musselman students who have taken interest in the land around the school. They are studying the watershed and “hot spots” on our campus. They are taking pictures and recording information of what we discover along with collecting the data. They are also testing the water and finding areas where they could clean up for cleaner water run off to the Chesapeake Bay.

Amanda- The students GPS unit where “hot spots” are they did this to make sure that they tested the same area so that the data did change. Also they have done this to show the areas on Google Earth.

Emily- The clean-up is a part of this watershed study. It will help clean our environment, and make it much better for our world. By planting trees, picking trash up, and putting down new mulch, soil, the students can take part in this clean-up by helping with the watershed project.

Dustin- The purpose of these tests is to help clean up the water and the run off also to help clean all the water around the school. We are trying to help people to clean up all water sheds.

Alonzo- One source of pollution in the Chesapeake Bay is non point source pollution types of non point source pollutants include weed killers, fertilization, and sediment. These run into any watershed causing pollution.

William- To help prevent “hot spots.”