During the school year, all the laboratory tests are done by the students in the high school science laboratory. In the summer, our committee hires a graduate student to do the sampling and testing. For students, a water quality monitoring project means the opportunity to actually do relevant research. But the monitoring results go into a computer, and students know that in 10 years people will still be using those results. Students feel they are making a real contribution to their community and to the health of the environment.
Students look forward to the water testing days.
The laboratory procedures do tend to be repetitious, but that is also an advantage - through repetition, students have the opportunity to master techniques. Students are willing to make the effort to perfect their technique because they know that their results matter. And they learn that real science often is repetitious. A teacher contemplating a monitoring program will probably wonder how the project will affect his or her scheduling and curriculum. Also, the membrane filtration procedure that we use for fecal coliform testing is somewhat involved.