Teaching kids about pollution through the ReSET program

As I strode to the front of Ms. Molly Moran's second grade class at Annapolis Elementary School one June morning, I was confident in my lesson plan, so elegantly simple that I didn't even need the 3X5 index card in my shirt pocket on which I had it drawn out.

My former boss at EPA's Wetlands Division, John Meagher, had invited me to talk about what I do in my work through the ReSET program he directs. ReSET is a D.C.-based non-profit volunteer organization that partners working and retired scientists, engineers and technicians with elementary school teachers to improve science motivation and literacy. ReSET's goal is to introduce children in the classroom to science, engineering and technology as being enjoyable and exciting (i.e., fun!).

John did his lesson first. I had scoped out his topic and identified a meaningful connection between his talk and mine. He was going to teach a hands-on, desk-top laboratory lesson about buoyancy, including a key vocabulary word: "gravity." (Did you know that a lacrosse ball sinks in fresh water but floats in salt water?)

I decided that was my link. The audience would be primed. I had decided on the audience participation approach, to put the pen into their little hands.

It was my turn. On the flip chart at the front of the class, I drew a hillside – a single black line – with wavy blue water at the bottom of the hill: the Bay, just like right outside the classroom window. A stick-figure person. A lolli-pop green tree. A cloud. A fish in the water. A swimmer. Rain.

I asked the class: "Where does the water go when it rains?"

The class: "Down to the Bay!"

"Why?"

One smart kid got it right: "Gravity!"

"How many of you have or know people who have dogs?" All the hands went up. Another volunteer drew a red dog on the hillside.

Then the clincher: "What do dogs do when you take them out to walk in the morning?"

The entire chorus: "THEY POOP!"

Ms. Moran interrupted: "Oh, Mr. Mike, you just got them to say their favorite word!" The audience, giggling, was wrapped. "Wait!" I said, fumbling around the front desk, "There's no brown marker!" Ms. Moran stopped the lesson until she could find one.

There was no shortage of volunteers to draw the little brown pile behind the dog. It was not exactly to scale.

"Where does that poop go when it rains?" "To the Bay" "Why?" "Gravity!"

"How do you think the fish and the swimmer feel about that?" "Yech!"

"What do you think you can do about that?" They knew that answer too.

And the lesson was over. I haven't had that much fun since the last time I caught a steelhead on a fly rod in a snowstorm.

Seriously, if you like kids half as much as I do and care about the future of the world, combine the two by volunteering with John for the ReSET program. John has the lesson plans; you and the kids have the fun.