Emplace Contribution 1

Pop quiz! True or False?
Environmental education is not required in most public schools in the United States.
Many schools do not have the funding for hands-on activities.
There are communities in the United States that don’t have clean water.

Think about it for a second

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

Our vision is to educate the youth about good water conservation practices so that they implement these 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 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 faces sewage flooding into their yards. The Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars (CODES) at SIUE partnered with HeartLands Conservancy and the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Food, Agriculture, Nutrition, and Innovation Center to look deeper into this issue. We are six students from this organization that works with after-school kids at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee (JJK) Academy in East St. Louis.
We have conducted almost two years of research about this wicked water equity issue. We have interviewed local educators and organizations, surveyed over 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. The emerging themes were lack of awareness, lack of funding, and outstanding curriculum requirements, all preventing educators from implementing water conservation into their classrooms. Therefore, we visited the Illinois State Capitol where we spoke with legislators about our findings. We decided to tackle after school programming which has less regulations. Read further to learn about the steps we took to orchestrate our very own water fair!

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 Centreville, Cahokia Heights, and East St. Louis struggle with sewage flooding into their yards. The Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars (CODES) at SIUE partnered with HeartLands Conservancy and the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Food, Agriculture, Nutrition, and Innovation Center to look deeper into this issue. We are six students from this organization that works with after-school kids at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee (JJK) Academy in East St. Louis.
After completing intensive research surrounding this wicked problem and truly immersing ourselves into it, we raise this question: Do elementary-age children who receive water conservation education apply water conservation practices at home? We expect the children who receive water conservation education do apply these practices in their homes, and the children who do not receive it, do not apply these practices in their homes. This is relevant to us because we have been working with JJK Academy to implement water conservation in their curriculum. One of our group members, Payton, is working on a water fair toolkit so that other communities can host their own water fair. Another member, Tamiria, is working on interviewing local organizations to get their feedback on water conservation education in the St. Louis region. We are curious about this topic because of the communities we see struggling around us.
We, as young adults, and our exposure to learning about water infrastructure in CODES opened our eyes to further look into what it is and all the different areas that connect to it, as water conservation. That’s how our curiosity started growing into our education area, of why we didn’t have class or a curriculum that taught us how to build environmental and sustainable habits around water conservation.
So we started researching and trying to prove that there are many benefits to having a water conservation class, lessons, or curriculum that can change our future by fighting back against climate change and water insecurity in our towns, states, and country.

In conclusion, we have all played a role in this research building into what is now known as the water fair, giving us the opportunity to teach kids a fun lesson in water conservation that we have created or modified to fit with our partners approach in a fun and interactive way of teaching in their after school program. After being able to try out lessons we were able to learn and understand different ideas and experiences with kids and how we can improve our ways of teaching that improve kids’ awareness of water conservation. We as the education research group in water conservation hope to make a difference in kids’ lives for the future of water resources.