Life vests fitting snugly, Tysean Curington, Elijah Ballou and Jamia Anthony, fourth-graders from Ketcham Elementary School in Southeast Washington, stood on a dock 30 miles from their urban neighborhood and peered into a bin of shells to try to spot "river critters."
Enthralled, they and their classmates poked through the shells and squealed in amazement as they found tiny shrimp, oysters, barnacles, mussels and a mud crab, all of which make their home in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.
"It's right there! Get it, get it, get it!" screamed Tysean, 10, pointing to a shrimp.
The youngsters scampered about, enjoying every minute of a recent field trip to the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, on the bay's western shore. They fished off the dock for crabs, measured the depth and temperature of the water and wiggled into rubber chest waders as they explored the Rhode River to learn more about the region's aquatic environment.
Ketcham is one of 15 public schools in the District participating in this year's DC BayWatch, an outreach program that teaches third-, fourth- and fifth-graders the science, culture and philosophy of conserving the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The program is one of several operated by Discovery Creek Children's Museum of Washington, a nonprofit organization that provides environmental education programming and outdoor nature experiences to students, their families and teachers.
"This is set up to expose D.C. public school students to other areas of the watershed, and to get them out to see that this water is connected to their water," said Emily Jagusch, Discovery Creek's bay programs manager. "They don't get out of the classroom a lot, and this is hands-on experience with what lives in the water."
The students also perform some of the tasks that adults with conservation careers perform. "This morning, scientists were out in a boat testing the water quality, and we're doing the exact same thing," Jagusch said. "The kids think that's pretty cool."
Amy Erb, an education specialist at the Smithsonian's research center, said the condition of the bay is considered "very poor," with chemical and other pollutants at high levels. The Susquehanna River, which flows into the Chesapeake, has been judged one of the 30 dirtiest rivers in the country.
"One of the main reasons for bringing kids to the center is to get the conservation message out, to plant the seed that we need to start taking responsibility for our actions," Erb said. "Educational researchers have found that if elementary school-age children experience something firsthand, they are more likely to remember it and be interested in it as they grow and progress."
Earlier last month, Ketcham students visited Discovery Creek's Schoolhouse, on MacArthur Boulevard in Northwest Washington, the only remaining one-room schoolhouse in the city. In a nearby creek, they searched for macroinvertebrates, such as frogs and bugs, to determine water quality.
The program also includes a trip to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Northeast, where the National Park Service runs a wetlands restoration project, and a cruise aboard the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Susquehanna workboat to explore the Anacostia and Potomac rivers.
"Each year the students just love this," said Diane Towles, a fourth-grade teacher at Ketcham who teams with the school's science resource teacher, Arliree Cooper, and art teacher, Donna Simpson, to participate in the Discovery Creek program, which is free for under-resourced schools in the city.
