By: Sydney Zinner
On June 25-26, 2024, a new cohort of educators gathered at the Alabama 4-H Center in Columbiana to complete their certification as 4-H Alabama Water Watch (AWW) Educators who will conduct bacteriological monitoring with their students in the coming school year.
This is the third cohort of educators to be part of this NOAA BWET-funded project, 4-H AWW Exploring Pathogen Pollution in Our Waters, which started with the first cohort in 2021. Educators came from various parts of Alabama, including Pickens, Shelby, Madison, St. Clair, Marshall, Blount, Hale, Lauderdale, and Autauga Counties.
Mona kicked things off at the 4-H Center with introductions and a few hands-on activities, like the popular “Why Test Water?” before jumping into bacteriological monitoring on Lay Lake.
Sergio led educators through collecting water samples from Lay Lake. The 4-H Center is nestled on the shores of Lay Lake, the perfect location to practice water quality sampling!
AWWesome Intern Emily led educators through Lesson 8, Where Does Pollution Go?, by demonstrating non-point source pollution on the Enviroscape watershed model.
Educators completed Bacteriological Data Analysis Exercises and investigated AWW monitoring data through charts, graphs, and maps to identify potential sources of pathogen pollution.
On Day 2 of the workshop, educators counted the R-CARDs they incubated overnight.
Luckily, our E.coli counts were LOW!
Educators had time to go through their Project Planning Workshops to outline how they will use the Exploring Pathogen Pollution in Our Waters Curriculum for the 2024-2025 School Year.
While we weren’t able to explore the Columbiana Wastewater Treatment Plant like we did last year due to expansion construction, we had time to do an alternative activity, Mapping Alabama’s Watersheds! This activity demonstrates that we are all connected to our downstream neighbors, therefore we should be good stewards of our land.
We are excited to see how these AWWesome Educators are going to incorporate bacteriological monitoring into their classrooms!