Southwest Montana Science Partnership Going Strong

Photo Above: Teachers investigate acid drainage at the former Calliope Mine site. The orange-red color of the water at the site is due to a high iron content. When exposed to water, the mine waste at the site renders the water acidic due to a high sulfur content. The acidic water then dissolves metals present in wastes.

The Southwest Montana Science Partnership (SMSP) project partners are pleased to announce the addition of Dr. John Graves to our leadership team. Dr. Graves currently leads the Montana State University Science Education Masters’ Program, and Dr. Graves has over thirty years of middle school teaching experience. He brings a strong focus on inquiry pedagogy skills as well as a keen ability to help teachers and faculty connect online through meaningful and engaging discussions.


Photo Above: SMSP teachers look on while Dr. David Hobbs from Montana Tech demonstrates the conductive properties of water.

The first cohort of teachers, who started SMSP courses in January 2009, is rolling right along. Teachers completed a water workshop in September and learned about the unique properties of water and how to monitor local streams. At the workshop, teachers explored two sites for field study, one highly impacted by mine waste water and the other impacted by a sewage treatment facility. The teachers discovered that watersheds can be impacted in many different ways and were quite excited to start exploring water near their area schools. Teachers were given World Water Monitoring kits to use with their students back at their schools, which was greatly appreciated, as school budgets are frequently too tight to afford testing equipment.


Photo Above: Science is not without its hazards. A misstep caused one SMSP teacher to slip in swampy mine waste up above her knee. No need to worry- a one-time exposure such as this is unlikely to cause any ill effects. Mining contamination is generally only harmful to human health after long-term, chronic exposure.

The teachers and their students will upload their site monitoring data into the World Water Monitoring database to be shared with teachers and students around the world.

The second cohort of thirty teachers will begin their study in January 2010 with the field mapping module. In addition, principals from our partner schools will be invited to attend the Principal’s/Leadership workshop in February. The addition of thirty teachers in cohort II and all participating principals will bring the total number of SMSP participants to over seventy. The project partners will be very busy indeed!

The SMSP project is funded by a ESEA, Title II Part B Mathematics and Science Partnership Grant through the Montana Office of Public Instruction.

-Rayelynn Connole, CFWEP Curriculum Coordinator

Catching Up with EcoDaredevil Award Winner Kathleen Kennedy

Kathleen Kennedy is one of two 2009 winners of the EcoDaredevil award, which honors those who are taking risks to promote conservation and environmental sustainability. Kathleen, a Missoula high school biology teacher, was admonished by her own school board for showing "The Story of Stuff," a popular film about the environmental costs of rampant consumerism, but Kathleen persisted. Kathleen took time away from her busy teaching schedule to provide the following update on life since receiving the EcoDaredevil award in September.

Photo above: Kathleen's EcoDaredevil award helmet, complete with a signature from singer Eddie Vedder.

Receiving an EcoDaredevil award has been a really fun and inspiring experience. Thinking about Evel Knievel trying stunts and then dusting himself off and trying again when things didn’t go as planned reminds me of the resilience that I have had to bring forth since my ordeal began. Comparing myself to Evel of course also makes me laugh—something I didn’t do much last year!

The award has given me a light-hearted way to discuss controversy and polarization with my students. Ironically, the controversy about the Story of Stuff as an educational video reached a new level just shortly after the EcoDaredevil awards ceremony. After being informed by one of his “watchdogs”, Glenn Beck of Fox News discussed the film and its use in classrooms on his program and incited his viewers to complain to their school boards. The Story of Stuff blog was filled with outrageous reactions. Having Glenn Beck challenge the Story of Stuff is yet another validation of the film’s important message and renews my resolve to ensure that students are given opportunities for critical thinking in my classroom.

On a funny note, I brought my EcoDaredevil helmet with me to Pearl Jam’s concert near Portland, OR in September with the plan to have the band’s bassist, Montana native Jeff Ament, with whom I had shared my story, sign it. To my surprise the entire band signed the helmet. I got to have a nice chat with Jeff before the show that included me giving him his own EcoDaredevil sticker! Interestingly, Eddie Vedder signed “with Love & Respect” and drew a picture of a wave, which makes me wonder if he is aware of the Great Turning (visit http://www.thegreatturning.net/ for more info).

Photo above: Kathleen with Pearl Jam bassist and Montana native Jeff Ament, an EcoDaredevil supporter.

My school year is going really well so far and I think this award allowed me to put things in perspective and go forth! Thanks for recognizing the role that educators have in helping us jump the chasm to sustainability.

For more information on the EcoDaredevil award, visit ecodaredevil.blogspot.com. For more on the Story of Stuff, visit http://www.storyofstuff.com/.

-Kathleen Kennedy

CFWEP's Fall Season Wrap-Up

Hi there!
My name is Marisol and this is my first of hopefully many contributions to this blog. I graduated in May of 2009 from Binghamton University in NY with a Bachelor's degree in Environmental Studies. I am taking some time off to work, be an americorps volunteer, and to hopefully get a better feel for what I would like to pursue in graduate school. I am very excited to be a part of CFWEP and I look forward to meeting everyone else who is also involved with the organization. I had a lot of fun and learned SO much during the fall season. Below is the wrap-up that I wrote for the CFWEP newsletter. Hope you enjoy it!



Photo Above: A panoramic view of the Blackfoot and Clark Fork River confluence before the dam was removed.



The fall season started off in September with Hellgate Middle School, followed by Lewis and Clark Elementary, Bonner School, and St. Joseph’s Elementary School. The students spent three days in the classroom with guest lecturers who provided a concise overview of current and historic circumstances surrounding the Milltown Dam and its removal.

The first lecture providesd an overview of the idea of watershed health, and a history of the Milltown Dam and of mining in Butte. It aimsed to create a well-rounded understanding of the circumstances that led to the building of the dam and the role that Butte played at such a pivotal time in American history.

The second lecture givesave a more in depth look at the numerous environmental hazards that have resulted from mining, which have affected not only Butte and its residents but all those who live downstream on the Clark Fork. This lecture also discussesd why the dam was removed and the related environmental impacts, both short- and long-term.

The third and final lecture discussesd the concept of parameters and readiesd students to go out into the field to conduct their own scientific assessments and comparisons of sites on the Blackfoot River, upstream of the dam, and on the Clark Fork River, downstream of the dam. These assessments included diversity in macroinvertebrate populations, riparian vegetation, pebble counts, and water chemistry, all as indicators of water quality and ecosystem health.

The data that the students collected was valuable to their own understanding of ecosystem and watershed health and succeeded in introducing many of them to the scientific process. Because there are real and on-going issues surrounding the pollution of the Clark Fork, a river in which many of them play and fish, it is a great way to help them to think critically about pollution and the importance of keeping their rivers clean.



Photo Above: Doug Martin from the NRDP talks about the restoration of the Clark Fork and Blackfoot River confluence with local students.


As an Americorps volunteer I had a great time interacting with the students and very much appreciated what came to be a crash course in the history of Butte in America, the impacts of mining on people and the environment, and in the many ways that citizen science can aid professionals in their work.

It was after the data was collected and the students were gathered around to look at the results more closely that I noticed how attentive they were. It was as if a lightbulb would go off in their heads as their compared pebble counts to better understand areas of erosion versus those of deposition, or the conductivity of the water affected by the mine waste versus that which had not. When these results were brought back to them in ways in which they were truly understood, like why barely anything can live in water affected by acid rock drainage being the equivalent ofis similar to why nobody would want to soak in a bath of lemon juice, it was evident that they got the point of what we were teaching them by the great questions they came up with. Some of them were very simple questions that, in true kid-manner, really got at the heart of the matter. Unfortunately a lot of the time it would be difficult to simplify what often turned into a complex explanation.
That, I think, is one of the best challenges of working with kids. There is no better test of your understanding of a complex issue than if you can simplify it enough to make it make sense to a class of 5th graders. So I thank them for the challenge because it helps me to really get down to the heart of the matter and to contemplate some of the really difficult questions.

CFWEP would like to send out a thank you to all of the teachers, students, and parent chaperones that participated in making this season a great success. We would especially like to thank everyone at St. Joseph’s who came out on the last, very cold and frozen field trip in October when it snowed. We had a real bunch of troopers!

Freezout Lake Lake's Spring Snow Goose Migration

It is a bit late for this blog/article/crappy journalism, but hey . . . better late than never! So here it goes, my first blog . . .

On April 4, 2009, my sister and went traveling north to Freezout Lake Wildlife Management Area near Fairfiled, MT. There is an incredible event that happens here every spring: the migration of the snow goose. Around 100,000 plus snow geese use this lake and its surronding series of ponds as a "rest stop" as they fly north to their summer feeding grounds. These geese fly from their southern wintering grounds (California, Baja and Mexico) up the "Pacific Flyway", a major north-south migratory route for birds. Freezout Lake happens to be on this route. The geese fatten up on the spent grain in the surrounding farm fields. After a couple of days, they head north to nest in either Hudson Bay, Alaska or Russia.

The geese leave the lake in the morning to feed in the fields. Around 10am, the geese return to water for a bit R & R. Around 5pm, the geese take off to the fields to feed again, returning back to the safety of the lake before dark. For me, it is the take-off from the water and the returning to the water that is the most spectacular. When one flock leaves to feed, a couple other flocks may head out with them. A wall of white leaving the water. When it is time to return to the water, many flocks dot the sky with a check-mark like pattern. The flocks will merge high above the lake, then swirl down to the water.

So enough blah, blah, blah. It's time to see some pictures and a little video, poorly narrated by my sister and I.

Fall Field Season Update

Photo Above: Students from East Middle School measure water chemistry on the banks of restored Silver Bow Creek just west of Butte.

Around the Clark Fork, our Fall school middle school visits are in full swing. We started in September at Drummond School and just completed our East Middle School visits in late October on the icy banks of Silver Bow Creek. Our last trip for the season is Butte Central High School in November.

We recently revised our curriculum in order to expand our history and bioindicator lessons, as well as give students more opportunity to practice field techniques and become comfortable with our new datasheets. We have also included additional activities to engage students in the classroom. New activities include making a watershed using paper, markers and water in order to visualize how water flows within a watershed. Another activity that is very effective in helping students with the field component is an in-class review of how to correctly identify vegetation structure (ground cover, understory and overstory) and how to identify aquatic macroinvertebrates. Finally, the in-class field practice has been expanded to include a practice vegetation assessment in addition to practice with GLX water quality meters.


Photo Above: Lorna McIntyre from CFWEP assists students in identifying the riparian vegetation of Silver Bow Creek.

CFWEP teachers around the Basin have responded enthusiastically to the revised curriculum. Most importantly, the students appear to enjoy the expanded activities. Students also seem to conduct their field trip data collection with more confidence. It is quite rewarding to hear the students using scientific terminology when discussing their field observations and experience.

Photo Above: CFWEP’s Arlene Alvarado helps students collect and identify stream insects in order to assess the health of Silver Bow Creek.

Before we know it, the Spring field trip season will be upon us. If you are interested in volunteering for a Spring field trip, contact Arlene Alvarado, CFWEP Field Coordinator, at (406) 496-4862 or aalvarado@mtech.edu for a full schedule of volunteer opportunities.

Go CFWEP!

-Arlene Alvarado, CFWEP Field Coordinator

2009 Blackfoot Youth Field Day: Transportation on the Clearwater

The Blackfoot Challenge sponsored its 9th Annual Youth Field Day on September 23, 2009. At the Harper’s Lake Fishing Access on the Clearwater River, just upstream from its confluence with the Blackfoot River, over 100 fourth through sixth grade students from all over the Blackfoot Watershed came together for a day of outdoor education.

Photo Above: In the Water Droplet Journey game, students flip a “dice” high into the air. The result will tell them where to go next in the water cycle.

Youth Field Days engage local students in their watershed, while addressing topics from natural resource issues to community sustainability. The topic for this year was Transportation, and students tackled the issue through stations on Seed Dispersal, Navigation, Mule Packing, Water Droplet Journey, and Journaling.

Photo Above: Students practice their observational skills before journaling on the banks of the Clearwater River.

CFWEP Curriculum Coordinator Rayelynn Connole led the Journaling station, where students learned to describe nature in their watershed, just as Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery observed and documented the American northwest. CFWEP AmeriCorps VISTA Lorna McIntyre and Janel Evans, Montana Tech AmeriCorps Team Leader, immersed students in the water cycle through the Water Droplet Journey game. Playing the role of a drop of water, students learn the varying pathways a water molecule can take through the water cycle. By learning only a small amount of water is available for human use, student gain a greater appreciation for their watershed and the value of clean, healthy water. And in the Blackfoot Valley, clean water and watershed stewardship will maintain the natural beauty of the Blackfoot River ecosystem well into the future.


For more information on our partners at the Blackfoot Challenge, visit http://www.blackfootchallenge.org/.

-CFWEP VISTA Lorna McIntyre

Science Cafe: The Science of the Berkeley Pit

To someone driving through Butte, Montana for the first time, one image dominates the landscape: the expanse of the Berkeley Pit to the north. The Pit extends 1700 feet from the top of the rim near the old Bell-Diamond Mine to the bottom of the over 40 billion gallons of acidic water that make up the slowly rising Pit Lake.

The sheer magnitude of the site, a functioning mine from 1955 until 1982, is enough to draw attention. But the environmental science underlying the Berkeley is the real cause for interest.

From the early days of underground mining in Butte, the hill has been dewatered by underground pumps. Those pumps ran continuously from the late 1800s until 1982. When economic conditions forced the Berkeley Pit to close, ARCO, the parent company of the Berkeley, decided to shut off those underground pumps.

The result is the Berkeley Pit Lake we see today. Without the pumps to keep the thousands of miles of tunnels beneath the Butte Hill dry, surface runoff and seeping groundwater began to accumulate, eventually reaching the bottom of the Pit. Throughout the 80s and 90s, the water level in the Pit continued to rise, and today the Pit Lake is over 1000 feet deep.

The water in the Pit is highly acidic, with a pH of about 2.5. A process called Acid Rock or Acid Mine Drainage is the culprit. Not all of the rock extracted from the Butte Hill and the Berkeley is valuable. A high percentage is waste rock, and a considerable amount of waste rock still sits behind the Berkeley to the north and east.

Rock from the Butte ore body is high in sulfur, mainly in the form of iron pyrite or fool’s gold. When exposed to air and water, the iron pyrite is oxidized. Mixed with surface and ground water, the sulfur increases the acidity of the water. This increased acidity, in turn, causes the other metals present in the rock, such as copper, lead, cadmium, and zinc, to dissolve into the water.

In the case of the eastern slope of the Butte Hill, all of this Acid Rock Drainage water flows, either over the surface or through a natural cone of depression in the ground water table, into the Berkeley Pit Lake. In this way, the Berkeley is not all bad: the collection of acid water there prevents it from spreading elsewhere where it could potentially impact the Butte valley or, just downstream, the Clark Fork River.

While the Berkeley water is certainly toxic, it is not as deadly as some suppose. The acidity of the Pit, with a pH of 2.5, is about the same as the acidity of your favorite soft drink. In other words, the Pit water is not going to instantly dissolve anything that touches it. There have been incidents of bird deaths in the Pit resulting from birds drinking and swimming in the Pit water continuously for more than a day. Today, hazing activities prevent birds from spending too much time in the Berkeley.

The main human health risk from the Berkeley involves the possibility that the water level may some day rise high enough to infiltrate into surrounding ground water aquifers. Such an occurrence could potentially contaminate drinking water wells, or contaminate ground and surface water downstream.

The critical water level at which Berkeley water could spread out from the Pit is 5410 feet above sea level. The surface of the Pit Lake currently sits at 5282 feet above sea level. As the water level rises only a few feet each year, that leaves a lot of time before the critical level is approached. Current projections estimate that the Pit Lake will near the critical level some time after 2023.

A strategy is already in place to manage the Pit water when that time comes. In 2003, construction was completed on the Horseshoe Bend Water Treatment Plant on the northeast rim of the Pit (as pictured below). Already tested and used in Montana Resources nearby mining operations, the Treatment Plant will pump and treat the Berkeley Pit water before it reaches the critical level.

The water is treated by adding materials, primarily lime rock, that reduce the acidity. As the acidity decreases, the metals and other toxins dissolved in the water settle out in a solid “sludge.” This leftover sludge will be dumped into the Pit, in effect, backfilling it very slowly. Treated, clean Pit water will be used in Montana Resources mining operations or discharged into nearby Silver Bow Creek (pictured below just downstream and to the west of Butte and the Berkeley).

While the visual and scientific spectacle of the Pit is essential to our current understanding of it, the most important legacy of the Berkeley cannot be seen at the Pit itself. Over 300 million tons of ore came out of the Berkeley, and the copper from that ore gave electricity and light and development to the U.S. and beyond. The next time you flip on an electric light in the middle of the night, take a second to remember the Berkeley Pit, and the true cost of the development we enjoy and often take for granted today.

Want to learn more about the Berkeley Pit, past, present, and future, as well as other environmental reclamation projects around the Butte area? Join Justin Ringsak for a Clark Fork Watershed Education Program Science Café discussion on the Berkeley Pit on Friday, Oct. 30 from 5:00 to 6:00 P.M. at the Venus Rising Espresso House, corner of Park and Main in uptown Butte.