Harrisburg students making a difference.
Science is a big part of early learning, and two Harrisburg teachers are encouraging science in the field while inspiring kids to get involved in their community.
Pam Plunkett and Lisa Ozment's fourth-grade classes at Harrisburg's East Side Intermediate School had some pretty exciting news this week.
Ozment and Plunkett were both trained to monitor water quality through a "Stream Discovery" workshop last fall and signed up to monitor the Middle Fork Saline River.
The students got to spend some time this past fall at the river, which runs just east of Harrisburg crossing US 45 in-between Harrisburg and Muddy. They will return a few more times before the end of the school year.
The students collected samples of the water and did chemical, physical and biological surveys in order to report the information on the "Stream Discovery" database.
Student Jake Blimline said his favorite part of the project was, "Going in the water and getting the mud and bugs to study."
"Testing the water, it was almost clean enough to drink out of," another student, Justice Counts, student.
As the teachers and students began sharing their project with others they noticed that many people in this area do not know where the Middle Fork Saline River is.
So the teachers helped the students to conduct a survey asking questions such as "What is the main river that runs through our area?" and "Have you seen a sign that tells the name of the river in our community?"
The survey found that 69 percent of the people asked could not name the river. They hypothesized that the lack of knowledge was due to the Middle Fork Saline River not properly marked with a sign along the roadway, as many others are marked.
So, the students and teachers decided to take action and wrote letters to Illinois state officials, such as state Rep. Brandon Phelps, Gov. Bruce Rauner, state Sen. Gary Forby and Wayne Rosenthal the state's director of natural recourses.
The end result was more than they had hoped for. Two out of the four officials sent return mail to the students encouraging and thanking them for their concern for the signage. The Illinois Department of Transportation was then notified and word came shortly after of their success.
"I would like to congratulate you all on this achievement and all that you do to monitor and study the Saline River," Phelps said in an official letter. "I ask as you all grow you keep believing in the issues that concern you and you all stay active in working with your elected officials to do something to better the situation."
On Jan. 6 a sign was placed along US 45 marking the Middle Fork Saline River for all to see.
"It's really awesome that fourth graders can do something this big," Harley McCabe, student in Mrs. Plunkett's 4th grade class, said.
"It's a great accomplishment for 19 kids to get a sign out there," Karmello Downey said.
A total of 10 separate letters were mailed to their perspective official and of the four Phelps had the biggest response.
An official sign dedicating commencement will be held before the end of the school year, after the weather warms up. No date has been set at this time.