On September 21, 50 students from Mary Lyon K-8 School visited Northeastern University for a field trip on pollution and sustainability. The field trip was organized by Mike McMahon and included volunteers from Northeastern’s chapter of ASME. In the morning, the students learned about sources of water pollution and ways to detect and combat the effects of it with water filters. They read a story about the development of pollution in the Charles River over time, and took turns dumping containers of “pollutants” into a bin of water to represent the river. The students then designed and created water filters that were used to filter the polluted water.
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- Students volunteering to get pollutants to dump in the water bin
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- Students pouring pollutants into the water bin
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- The fully polluted “Charles River”
In the afternoon, the students focused on the reasoning behind over-fishing, and the possible long-term impact it may have on the environment. They did an activity to represent two competing fishing industries struggling to be successful without depleting their available population of fish.
