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Figure 1. Mrs. White and her fourth-grade class on Sweeney Elementary front lawn, just before they go out to stencil storm drains near the school and pick up trash. Front row, left to right: Kiley R, Megan R, Kayla G, Travis M, Rodrigo N, Savannah M.
Middle row: Quintin W, Erick G, Mariah T, Kim P, Tyler D, Alex H.
Back row: Josh M, Mrs. Becki White, Jessica S, Nadia T, Jackie J, Sydney J, Troy B, and Chandler W.
Figure 2. Mrs. Becki White's Shakopee 4th graders created this poster board diagram of good and bad stormwater flow, which greets people at the main entrance of Sweeney Elementary.
Figure 3. This is the stenciled warning that Mrs. Becki White's 4th graders spraypainted on the storm drains around Sweeney Elementary.
Figure 4. The southwest section of Shakopee, around the school at 10th and Adams, was the locus of the class's May 24 stenciling. They completed more than 100 storm drain stencils within a few hours.
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Mrs. White's Shakopee Fourth Graders Storm the Storm Drains
Mrs. Becki White teaches fourth grade at Edward and Grace Sweeney Elementary School at 10th Ave. and Adams St. in Shakopee, Minnesota.
Every year her fourth graders do a community project. In past years, topics have included such hot-button issues as bullying. This year, the topic is environmental, and friends and parents of her 21 current kids are finding out just how hot an issue the environment is. (See class portrait, Figure 1.)
Thought — and then action
That’s because her project calls for both reflection and action.
The reflection started with guest speaker Connie Fortin, of Fortin Consulting in Hamel, who visited the classroom and told the kids about stormwater — what it was, how it got polluted, what we can do about such pollution.
After hearing Ms. Fortin, the kids decided that the problem with stormwater was that most people don’t know the simple fact that water from storm drains goes into our lakes and rivers.
Indeed, Mrs. White tells the story of a local man found walking home with an empty oil pan (into which he’d drained his car’s used oil). “Gosh,” he told a bystander. “I had to walk halfway across town before I could find a drain that didn’t say ‘No Dumping.’”
| Video clips of May 24's stenciling
You may need broadband Internet service to download and play the following video clips.
Mrs. White's group shown in these clips consists of Quintin W, Erick G, Josh M,
Jessica S, and Kiley R.
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As incredible as this example is, it shows exactly what Mrs. White’s kids learned — that people dump things down our storm drains whether through ignorance or accident. Furthermore, people don’t know that pollutants like oil, fertilizer, and grass clippings flow into our lakes and rivers and damage them.
The project’s action components
Mrs. White’s fourth graders moved into action with these tasks:
- One group wrote wrote letters about the problem to Shakopee city officials, who responded by coming out to visit the class.
- A second group created signs for bulletin boards in about a dozen Cub Foods, Rainbow, Target, and other community stores.
- A third group created a large poster board about the problem, with old crafts supplies, that now stands just inside the school’s entrance (see Figure 2).
- The class as a whole went out, on May 24, and stenciled the stormwater drains around the school (see Figures 3 and 4).
No dumping warnings
The Environmental Protection Agency requires every city to educate the public on stormwater management.
In the case of Shakopee, the city sent Environmental Specialist Ryan Hughes, along with his intern, John Nichols, to talk to the class about the stormwater project. Nichols brought along drain stencils that he’d found on the web and a map of old Shakopee, which drains into the Minnesota River.
Partnering with the city, the Watershed District provided up to $500 in funds for the stenciling project.
On the windy, sunny morning of May 24, the kids split into three adult-supervised groups, and each child took a turn spraypainting the stencil.
The results are both legible and impressive. Suddenly, over 100 stormwater drains near the school bear the environmental hazard warning “No Dumping. Drains to River.” (See Figure 3 and the first and second video clips in the bullet list above.)
This summer Mrs. White and the kids may be going out to do more stenciling, on a voluntary basis, beyond the area in western Shakopee where the school is located (see the map in Figure 4).
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