As part of a science education project led by a Northwestern University professor, students at Evanston Township High School and middle school students at Evanston's Chiaravalle Montessori School this year have joined forces with students from some two dozen other Chicago area schools to do original environmental research.

From Lake Barrington to Frankfort and from DeKalb to the Chicago lakefront, the students are breaking new scientific ground by collecting and analyzing soil samples to determine how much of the salt that is being used to get ice and snow off our roads is accumulating in the soil.

“Doing science the way real-world scientists do it should be an essential part of science education,” says Daniel Edelson, associate professor of learning sciences and computer science at Northwestern University. Edelson is heading up the road salt research effort and has been involved in numerous curricular projects involving science learning in Evanston and Chicago area schools.

He created the project “to provide an opportunity for students to get excited about science by seeing how science matters in their communities. We want to give students a flavor of the exciting work scientists are engaged in,” says Northwestern's Edelson.

The University received funding for the project from BP as part of its highly competitive BP Leader Award Program, and was one of only five such grants awarded in the Chicago area for innovative science and math education projects.

While considerable research has been conducted on the effects of road salt on our streams, rivers and lakes, Edelson's team was surprised to find out that little, if any, had been done on the buildup of road salt in soils near city streets.

“That means our student investigators are doing original environmental research that is directly relevant to their communities,” says Edelson.

And that makes a difference to students. “It makes it more fun for everyone when we don't know the answers to the science questions we're posing,” says chemistry teacher David Chan, one of two Evanston Township High School teachers working with ETHS pupils and Edelson on the road salt investigation.

To date, the students have measured a dramatic increase in the salt levels between fall and winter. The big question now is how much of that salt will wash away before spring growing season.

Typically Chan's ETHS students are engaged in one lab a week. “But they're aware that I already know what's supposed to happen in those labs, and that there are definitive answers to the questions they're asking.

“The road salt investigation is different. Neither they nor I know how things are going to come out. And that's exciting,” Chan says.

Students in Chan's chemistry classes and in classes taught by ETHS biology teacher Beth Christiansen have taken soil samples from the same locations around the high school in fall, winter and spring.

In Chan's two classes alone, 12 groups of students have taken samples from three different locations. Using Google aerial maps, the students were able to view the high school and surrounding area, and placed a "bubblepoint" at each of the collection data locations.

They also recorded information on the maps about the road near their sampling locations (number of lanes, speed limit, curb height), nearby vegetation, weather conditions at time of sampling and the slope of the sampling site.

As did all the student researchers in the study, the Evanston students took some samples at the curb, some at one meter from the curb and others at three meters from the curb.

Using probes, they then mixed the soil samples in distilled water and measured the samples for conductivity. The more a sample conducts electricity, the more salt is in it, they learned.

Using a Web site available to all the study's participating student researchers around Chicago, the students entered their data for everyone to see. Their next step will involve making hypotheses and testing test hypotheses by analyzing the data.

To analyze the data, they use My World GIS, an award-winning geographic information system developed at Northwestern by Edelson. My World software allows young learners to easily explore and analyze large sets of geographic data in much the same way that real-world scientists do.

The Northwestern project has arranged for all students and teachers in the study to meet fact to face and discuss their findings in May at the Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park.

ETHS physics teacher Chan says he was skeptical about the project at first because it was a pilot program. “Sometimes pilot programs lose their momentum,” Chan explains.  “But this one was exceptionally well organized,” he says. “If it's offered next year, I want to integrate it more fully into my classes.”

“The My World software allows students to compile data on a much larger scale than they're used to doing. And it provides an innovative way of looking at data,” says ETHS's Chan.

Taking part in a study with others investigators “shows them that scientists are part of a bigger community, that they just don't work in laboratories all by themselves,” says Chan. “That's another stereotype about scientists that needs to be broken.”

We are trying to get out of this 20th-century, overly-siloed way of teaching business.

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