Month: March 2026

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 face sewage flooding into their yards. The Community-Oriented Digital Engagement Scholars (CODES) at SIUE partnered with the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Food, Agriculture, Nutrition, and Innovation Center to look deeper into this issue. We are six students from this program who work with after-school kids at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee (JJK) Academy in East St. Louis. 

We have conducted two years of research on this wicked water equity issue. 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. Soaking in all this information and seeking a game plan, we visited the Illinois State Capitol, where we spoke with legislators about our findings. We decided to tackle after-school programming, which has fewer regulations. Read further to learn about the steps we took to, ultimately, orchestrate our very own water fair!

Our first semester in CODES was spent defining our “wicked” problem. They call it a wicked problem because it is so deep and multifaceted. We asked ourselves questions like, “What are stakeholders and who are they in this situation?” and “What does this flooding issue look like along the Southern American Bottom?”. Not too long after our first introduction, we were itching to find out more. 

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

On top of constructing a survey, we also interviewed a local educator, Zach, who also works with after-school kiddos at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Academy. Here you can find the full transcription of the interview. 

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?” This 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. 

One of our last steps in our research semester was visiting SIUE’s STEM Center. We met with the head of the center, Andrea Dexheimer, who is 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. This was especially helpful for both those who constructed water fair activities as well as those who planned the water fair toolkit. 

After a year of researching and brainstorming, we decided to host a water fair at the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Academy. There were 4 stations: “The Magic of Water Filtration”, “The Dirt Detective”, “Runoff with Water Knowledge”, and “Water Word Wonders”.

Click here to read more about our water fair. This presentation will be used as a resource for teachers who would like to implement our water fair into their school curriculum or after-school program. This presentation will help guide teachers in using each lesson plan to the best of its ability for students. Our ultimate goal is to implement more water infrastructure education for youth in East St. Louis, influencing a new generation to become further aware of issues regarding all-around water infrastructure. The purpose of this presentation is to go over each lesson in the water fair tool kit and explain what went well, and things we can work on to make the lesson plan better.

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 and 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. 

We have been working alongside the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Food, Agriculture, Nutrition, and Innovation Center in East St. Louis, especially with local educators, Zach and Kurly. Zach and Kurly were able to attend our water fair and give us good feedback, which was also incorporated into the toolkit. Payton hopes that this toolkit can be distributed to other communities to raise a new generation of students to make good decisions regarding water. 

Tamiria’s focus in this research was to investigate the methods that organizations use to inform the public about water conservation. This process took approximately a month to interview and decode them. 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 in 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 her to understand the importance, just like the National Great River Center, we were able to apply these same engaging techniques to our 2025 Water Fair. We had four stations where students were able to take different things from. Ultimately, the experience allowed students to take away positive water conservation practices that can be applied to daily life.

All in all, we six sophomores are feeling bittersweet about 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. She has been an incredible mentor, guiding us every step of the way. We are beyond grateful to have had her support, guidance, and 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, the Strategic Partnership Manager at JJK, who is interested in continuing this education. We want to reach other communities in different areas that are experiencing the same wicked problem we are.