Pop quiz! True or False?

Over the past 40 years the world’s population has doubled. Our use of water has quadrupled. Yet the amount of water on Earth has stayed the same.

30% of pipes in systems that deliver water to more than 100,000 people are between 40 and 80 years old.

Out of 118 water samples taken in Cahokia Heights, eight were contaminated with E.coli.

Think about it for a second.

Well, if you said they’re all true, you’d be correct! 

Meet our crew!

Alexandra Guerrero Public Health “Water Word Wonders”	Justin Richerson Biology “The Magic of Water Filtration”	Marques Rutlin Music Education “The Dirt Detective”
Payton Plummer Business Administration Water Fair Toolkit	Sonia Sheryr Biology   “Runoff with Water Knowledge”	Tamiria Dixon Social Work Local Organization Interviews

Introduction

We are six students from the Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars (CODES) at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) working to educate the youth about good water conservation practices in hopes that they implement these same water habits in their home. Looking at the bigger picture, we want to influence this new generation to be knowledgeable about water and combat climate change. We have orchestrated our own water fair at Jackie Joyner-Kersee Academy (JJK Academy) with students aged 8-10. We had 4 stations that focused on water conservation vocabulary, soil, water runoff, and water filtration. By participating in water fairs, children are exposed to water conservation exercises and will want to take pride in conserving their Earth. 

This is important to the St. Louis area because it is located on a flood plain. Not only is this area on a flood plain, it also has a heavily industrial background. The pipes that are underground are deteriorating over time and are not sustainable during heavy rains. Areas in Illinois like Cahokia Heights (formerly Cahokia, Centreville, and Alorton) and East St. Louis face sewage flooding into their yards.

What is a “Wicked Problem”?

A “wicked problem” is defined as a problem that spans many different areas; therefore, it doesn’t have an exact solution because one change can affect another part of the overall problem, leaving it unsolved. Based on our investigation into the surrounding lack of education in water conservation in schools, our project responds to the wicked problem of water conservation not being tough in school by using research; based to create and implement lessons that were fun and interactive for kids k-8th in a water fair. Giving us the opportunity to try out the lessons with kids and have a better understanding of how educators would teach this topic and how kids will interact and learn. Overall, we hope to inspire other schools to see the importance of teaching water conservation to young kids, as it can make a difference in our future water resources. 

Project Summary

We have conducted two years of research about this wicked water equity issue. We asked ourselves, “How can the new generation become advocates for their community?” and “How can we shed light on areas like Cahokia Heights that face water inequity?” These questions kickstarted our research about water equity and youth education. 

Community Partner

We partnered with the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Food, Agriculture, and Nutrition Innovation Center (JJK FAN) to help us tackle our wicked problem. They are a developing community focused on giving back to the community and making an impact on children in the area. We have been closely working with Zachary Stafford, Danforth STEAM+Ag Educator, and Kurly Taylor Jr., MPA, Strategic Partnership Manager. Zach and Kurly have been guiding us through dissecting our wicked problem. We first asked them what they needed from us, as JJK is now expanding. They expressed concern about hands-on activities with kids and getting them involved in their community. 

Research Methods

 We have interviewed local educators and organizations, surveyed nearly 200 educators regarding their part in water conservation education, and learned from SIUE’s own STEM Center faculty about what it takes to develop lesson plans. These methods were crucial in tackling our wicked problem because we were able to soak in all this information and seek a game plan. We decided to tackle after school programming which, we learned, has less regulations. Read further to learn about the steps we took to, ultimately, orchestrate our very own water fair!

During just our second semester in CODES, we immersed ourselves in research, gathering data, and overall familiarizing ourselves with our wicked problem. In doing this, we created a survey aimed toward educators. We titled this “Teachers’ Perspectives on Water Conservation Education”. We wanted to see what educators were or weren’t doing about this crisis, but also get a feel for their classroom environment. Our survey questions were mostly multiple choice, but ended with a few free responses. We received 196 complete responses. The majority of our responses came from those who interacted with sixth through eighth grade students. 

Across the board, educators agreed that hands-on labs and experiments work best for engaging students. However, when asked if they implement water conservation topics into their classes, the majority said no. If they responded no, the next question asked why not. The emerging themes were lack of awareness, lack of funding, and outstanding curriculum requirements, all preventing educators from implementing water conservation into their classrooms. What does this look like? In some cases teachers aren’t prepared or equipped to give students hand-ons learning when it comes to water conservation education. Along with that, school districts might face budget obstacles or curriculum requirements. Click here to learn more about our survey results and findings.

 This was eye-opening, and arguably the most important takeaways. We took this information and presented it at SIU System Day at the Illinois State Capitol. We spoke with legislators about the curriculum requirements as well as the sparse funding and will be following up with another visit in March 2026. 

Findings & Themes

On top of constructing a survey, we also interviewed Zach Stafford, who also works with after school kiddos at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Academy. We asked questions regarding how the kids at the academy learn and what changes are feasible to their after-school program. There were many themes that emerged, but a few outshone the others. For example, technological advancement was one recurring theme. Zach said on multiple occasions that he’d like to utilize technology and potentially drones to help kids visualize these water conservation issues, “Drones! That’s what I’m trying to get right now. We have a good drone program, it’s probably one of my favorite ones. And I’ve been trying, begging and begging for a thermal imaging drone. And just no luck, no funding… I think stuff like that, that’s easy for kids to understand, where they can automatically pull up a chart, I think is great.” 

Another theme is activity characteristics for the after-school program. He wants these activities to be hands-on and science-forward. Zach said, “I think water conservation hits a lot, and science. They’re not the focus kind of test scores. It’s really math and reading, right?” which explains his frustration with the lack of science education requirements in the state.

The last theme is what is important to these kids and what they take away when they go home. He wants to influence these kids to tie what they learn in his space to their homes, hoping they make a difference in their community. 

Here you can find the full transcription of our interview with Zach.

One of our last steps in our research semester was visiting SIUE’s STEM Center. We met with the head of the center, Dr. Andrea Dexheimer, who was then a research biologist at SIUE. She talked to us about all the things that go into finding and/or creating lesson plans such as Bloom’s Taxonomy, which outlines the characteristics of learning outcomes. This was especially helpful for both those who constructed water fair activities as well as plans for the water fair toolkit. 

CODES Water Fair

After a year of researching and brainstorming, we decided to host a water fair at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Academy in October 2025. There were 4 stations, each outlined and facilitated by one of us CODE Scholars: “The Magic of Water Filtration” by Justin Richerson, “The Dirt Detective” by Marques Rutlin, “Runoff with Water Knowledge” by Sonia Sheryr, and “Water Word Wonders” by Alexandra Guerrero. These stations were created to engage students hands-on while teaching them about water and good water practices. 

Click here to read more about our water fair. 

This water fair could be used as a resource for teachers that would like to implement our water fair into their school curriculum or after school program, but it was also helpful to one of our group members, Payton, as she constructed a Water Fair Toolkit for this same reason. This presentation will help guide teachers in using each lesson plan to the best of its ability for students. This presentation outlines each lesson in the water fair tool kit and explains what went well, and things we can work on to make the lesson plan better.

Water Fair Toolkit – Payton Plummer

After our water fair concluded, we were able to dissect what went well and what areas could use improvement. One of our group members, Payton Plummer, constructed a water fair toolkit. This is a guide for other communities to implement similar events. She wanted to analyze the CODES water fair on a bigger scale. 

She began by brainstorming topics that would encompass our goals but also that would be age appropriate and easily digestible. She created a Google Doc with different tabs, starting with a “Read Me” file– consisting of an overview as well as instructions for navigation. Another tab is labeled “Logistics” which covers the planning details it takes to create a water fair. The next tab is “CODES Water Fair” where there is a detailed description of all things that went into constructing the water fair that inspired it all. The remaining tabs are the topics covered: Water Equity, Water Conservation, Water Filtration, Community Gardens, and Flooding. Within each topic, there are four more tabs: Overview, Photos, Instructions, and Materials. Each topic has hands-on activities that would have a lasting impact on the participants and lead them to think more about water. 

Local Organizations Interviews – Tamiria Dixon

Tamiria’s focus in this research was to investigate the methods that organizations use to inform the public about water conservation. This process took about approximately a month to interview and decode. With that being said, she was able to interview 3 staff members in the education department about the methods that they use. They began to explain their relationship between local school districts as it regards teaching science curriculum. 

Furthermore, staff members shared that they supply teachers with materials such as soil to help immerse students into the learning experience. Through this process, she was able to create a thematic analysis based on the words that were repeated the most. This allowed for her to understand the importance, just like the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center, we were able to apply these same engaging techniques to our 2025 Water Fair. Ultimately, the experience allowed for students to take away positive water conservation practice that can be applied to daily life.

Conclusion

All in all, us six sophomores are feeling bittersweet wrapping up our final CODES Project. We have all played an important role in this research and implementation, but we couldn’t do it without our research team professor, Dr. Adriana Martinez, Environmental Sciences professor and department chair at SIUE.  She has been an incredible mentor, guiding us every step of the way. We are beyond grateful to have had her support, guidance, and all-willingness to collaborate with us, starting when we were six baby freshmen away from their homes for the first time. 

Our next step for this water education is to distribute our work to other communities. We are still working with Kurly Taylor, who is interested in continuing this education. We want to reach other communities in different areas who are experiencing the same wicked problem we are. 

Appendix

Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars (CODES)

Jackie Joyner-Kersee Academy (JJK Academy)

Jackie Joyner-Kersee Food, Agriculture, Nutrition, and Innovation Center (JJK FAN)

National Great Rivers Research and Education Center

Read more about the CODES Water Fair

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE)

Teachers’ Perspectives on Water Conservation survey results

Water Fair Toolkit (In progress)

Zach Stafford interview transcription

References

This Black Town Has E. Coli in Its Drinking Water, but Feds Just Cut Support

Experts: U.S. water infrastructure in trouble – CNN.com

Water supplies in crisis – BBC News

The purpose of our work is to educate young students regarding water conservation and how this topic relates to the water crisis. Our individual products play a role in each of us contributing to a lesson in the water fair, surveys, and the toolkit. Each of our products and contributions help us achieve our overarching goal.

The target audience for our project is 5th-12th-grade students. We want to focus on educating kids about water conservation and better water habits. The youth of today are one of the most important stakeholders in society and have a huge impact on the environment. Other stakeholders that could utilize our research and products are local schools, educators, our partners, and especially after-school programs without specific curriculum criteria. To best understand our project, teachers should read the water fair tool kit, which gives them access to different water conservation lesson plans and other important water fair tips. To utilize the water fair toolkit to its best ability, first open the “Read Me” file. Here you will find the motive behind this project as well as how to properly use the toolkit.

It’s very important that our research be shared so that it can make a greater change and inspire other schools to teach water conservation. The value of our research reaching communities and our partners after school program makes a greater difference to a whole generation of kids and raises awareness to build sustainable habits to have clean water for many more years, and future generations can have access to clean water. 

It can be said that respect, equity, and integrity are imperative ethics to consider as they relate to the work we plan to conduct. More importantly, we must consider that our largest stakeholders are children, and we must not rush in hastily because we need to tread very carefully when it comes to the ethics of working with children. 

As a group, we keep in communication through text messages as our main way to check on each other and share updates about our work. We also discuss and set deadlines that give us enough time to look over and review our work before turning it in. We have a shared Google Drive folder that has all necessary documents, pictures, and articles.

Alexandra Guerrero is in her second year at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, where she is majoring in public health with a minor in business administration. At her university, she is part of Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars (CODES), an honors program that covers your tuition for all 4 years. She was inspired to change her major to public health through her research in CODES and wanted to make a difference by helping people. She grew up in a small town in the Heart of Dixie, Alabama, where her community always helped each other. She was always very involved with her community, helping with events representing her Hispanic community, from translating to cleaning up and setting up. She hopes to further her education and earn a PhD in public health, where she can use it to work with communities and organizations to host events that help people understand why their health is important and the changes we, as communities and individuals, can make to improve our overall way of life.

So far as of now, the research team is in a waiting stage. We are waiting for new updates and feedback on our emplace contribution, but we have been good at keeping our work organized. However I feel like I feel behind because I have missed class a few times from sickness. Moving on with our community partner, we haven’t done much with them, as we already know what they are looking for in the education approach to water conservation. So future wise I think our partners will be given the opportunity to share our research and projects with them and how we hope to present our work to the public. That shows JJKFAN and CODES hope and foundation, to the best of our writing, expressing background understanding and improvement through the semester that have brought us to this point. The mentor support my group and I have received from CODES 320 and the opportunity to talk again with our research leaders, Dr. Martinez, was very helpful. We talked about ideas we had and the different ways or areas we wanted to show our research through a blog on emplace that was eye catching and highlighted our biggest achievement throughout our research. 

When it comes to feedback, I have a different process for seeing and acting upon receiving it. First, I either listed or viewed their feedback on my work and discussed it in person if they made comments regarding my assignment. Ask them to provide a very detailed account of their feedback so I can understand what I need to change or modify to make my work the best it can be. If i were to give feedback to someone i would make sure to do it in person so that I can explain that areas of their work can use some modification. I always find it easier to talk in person when giving or receiving feedback, as it lets me ask questions and get answers, since it can be hard to understand exactly what you need to change. Some of the ways I have looked into improving how I receive feedback are by reviewing my work before reevaluating it with the new feedback. Also, change my mindset and how I view the feedback on my work, and if i dont understand what they are telling me to change i need to reach out to the person who gave me the feedback to fully understand what they want to be changed to make my work clean and understandable to the reader. I also tried to use the feedback I received to improve my writing and assignments. In my research group, we always reviewed each other’s work, offering feedback and ideas to improve our overall research as a group and as individuals. Being able to talk and discuss as a group, we were able to give each other ideas and organize our research so that we were clear and organized, letting the people who read our work understand exactly what we are doing.

From our research and overall work, we have recreated lessons and understanding of the importance of water conservation for kids. We want our work to reach educators and kids to inspire change in schools and programs through other schools. In our research and working with our partners, the stakeholders are JJKFAN and specifically their after school program. After visiting and talking with them, we were able to understand what they were looking for, which was an interactive and fun approach to teaching kids, with our research topic of water infrastructure. We were able to shape our topic and research water conservation in education. Focusing on how we can enhance education in this after-school program with a concentration in water conservation that is fun and interactive, making a change to the way they see things and changes they can make in their everyday lives. T

For this semester’s first reflection, I’ll be answering 3 questions. Firstly, it’s how I’m going to revise my work. I am going to focus on strengthening my lessons from the definition to the picture to help students better understand the lesson’s overall goal. Will also look into deepening the evidence base of where I get my examples and information from other educators. I will also refine my work to improve flow and make it easier for teachers and students to understand. 

Secondly, for my secondary source, I will explore systematic reviews and possible meta-analyses on how other educators see and teach these topics and where they can be improved, which can benefit my overall lesson outcomes. Look into school requirements and courses in water conservation and sustainability. Also, research local or regional data on history and how that relates to the area’s education, and explain why kids should be educated about sustainability, the environment, and conservation. Taking care of what you have, know to learn how to improve it. See how my group’s implementation of the water conservation goal was achieved, how far we have come, and new ways to improve based on our past visit with our partners and the water fair. 

Lastly we are writing to schools, educators, legislators and school board officials to inform the public that making a change in schools’ way of teaching to a more interact approach in our case center in the topic of water conservation importance in teaching them young too build long lasting habit in their lifes is for the greater good of our future generation the changes we do now do count for tomorrow. Our hope to make a good change also represents our school and scholarship. Giving us the opportunity to fight for a greater future with many more opportunities for equality, education, water, and resources.