What's the ozone like in your neighborhood today?

Using weather trackers and ozone detectors purchased with BP Leader Award grant , students will collected data at Cornerstone on ozone levels and weather variables including temperature, wind direction, wind speed, cloud types, and % cloud cover.  Data was analyzed for correlations between weather variables and ozone levels, and will be shared with a national on-line data base. Students are involved in a variety of activities to educate the community about ozone.

BP Leader Awards 

(l to r: Dr. Mary Hobbs, Director of Science, Spring Branch ISD, Mario Gomez, Meterololgist, Channel 11, and Ms. Clark)

See an animation of ozone

 development on any day in Houston!

View live web cams at cities around the U.S.

Creek & Pond Study

With a grants from SEASPACE and the J Landon Short Mini- Grant for educators students began a  field study to compare  pond and creek environments, to find out what the differences are in  physical , chemical, and biological characteristics of still vs moving bodies of water. 

Thanks to a  $1000 grant from the Toshiba America Corporation,  we have purchased better water testing equipment, and hope to find out what the impact of human activities are on our watershed, specifically, what are the effects of run-off from residential fertilizers and detergents on Spring Branch Creek, which is located in a heavily impacted urban area. 6th graders from Cornerstone will teach the water testing methods to 5th graders at Spring Branch Elementary School and Valley Oaks Elementary School to examine sources of non-point source pollution in the creek.

We will also consider the impact of Spring Branch Creek on the Buffalo Bayou watershed, and Galveston Bay, and how the students can educate their families and the community about what goes down storm drains, and its impact on Galveston Bay. We hope to install markers on the curb beside storm drains to remind the community not to dump chemicals, lawn clippings, etc in the storm drains.

A website will be created for sharing of data, and a community volunteer from Exxon Mobil Corporation will work with our 6th graders to create a GIS map of the data .

Click here to learn more about macro-invertebrates found in streams:

http://www.people.virginia.edu/~sos-iwla/Stream-Study/Key/Key1.HTML

Click here to learn about water chemistry tests used to measure water quality

Click here to for more information about stream studies:

http://www.people.virginia.edu/~sos-iwla/Stream-Study/StreamStudyHomePage/StreamStudy.HTML

Click here to for more information about watersheds:

http://www.bellmuseum.org/mnideals/watershed/watershed2.html

http://www.iwla.org/yikes/s2_wetlands.html

  http://www.epa.gov/ow/ 

For Information about the Buffalo Bayou Watershed:

http://cfpub.epa.gov/surf/huc.cfm?huc_code=12040104

Be a stream doctor:

http://www.iwla.org/yikes/SU99_y2.html

Here's What Kids Can Do To Help!

http://www.iwla.org/yikes/su99_y1.html#kidhelp

SCOOL

Students will assist NASA in collecting ground observations of weather variables and will observe cloud cover and types of clouds. Data will be reported to the NASA national data base. Ground observations will be compared to measurements made by the Aqua satellite.

SOLAR

Students will assist NASA in collecting ground observations of solar intensity and will report data to the NASA national data base. Ground observations will be compared to measurements made by the Sage II satellite.

Click here to see Ms. Clark's Summer Research Projects at Earthworks

Teachers from Earthworks Summer of 2002

( Can you find Ms Clark? She's in the second row, 7th from the left!))

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