AGU Fall Meeting 2024

This research study explores the integration of social and emotional awareness in teaching about water justice issues through a culturally relevant approach, emphasizing mindfulness of its toll on student empowerment in urban schools.

Learning objectives are often reinforced using news items, governmental data platforms or policy elements to contextualize and justify class contents. This may trigger despair, fear, and other negative feelings of various extent depending on the students’ lived experience and background. Therefore, fostering a mindful learning environment that promotes student empowerment is needed.

While exploring the potential of relying on governmental interactive data platforms and portals to create an authentic learning experience, we, teachers and educators, noted the importance of considering cultural context when addressing water justice concerns. By relying on our personal background, class experiences, literature and theory, we present lessons learned, strategies and recommendations for our peers, to avoid damaging learning experiences, and instead, to inspire, encourage and elevate our students.

We aim to inform educators, policymakers, and parents about the potential benefits of incorporating social and emotional learning in water justice education, while recognizing cultural diversity and promoting student empowerment in urban school settings. By adopting this integral approach, educators can foster a more inclusive, equitable, and mindful learning environment, which encourages students to become active participants in tackling water justice issues in their communities and beyond.

We, teachers in Living Environment and Mathematics at a middle school in Harlem, have collaborated with water researchers at Columbia University to enhance the students' classroom experience. Throughout the Spring semester of 2024, we exposed grade 6 and 7 students to two interactive online tools directly in line with the classes curriculum learning objectives. These platforms, the IUCN Red List and the Water Footprint Calculator, served as a support and enhancer for state labs and regents exams notions.

We noted a strong engagement in the use of these websites, leading to more conversations and initiatives by students to take the work further. The learning was reinforced during a larger Water Fair, which provided an opportunity for teach back which was embraced by the students. We are yet to formally assess the validity of the approach and learning gains, as we are still in an exploratory phase, including limited hardware, glitches in internet tools, and the potential for a consistent and sustained use.

We will share an honest account of failures and happy surprise, with specific tips for teachers who wish to bring a bit of modernity in their classroom lab activities with concurrent information, develop internet navigation skills, or provide a readily available authentic learning experience by relying on official platforms.

Water makes for an engaging science topic as we all drink, eat, cook, or wash ourselves using water. Over the past decade, the topic has only grown in interest with news reports on persisting lead concentration, emerging contaminants such as PFAS, presence of microplastics, or bottled water contamination. Fears and doubts are legitimate, but learning standards and adopted curricula provide few resources or methods to empower students and educators.

"Is my drinking water safe?" requires an approach specific to the source of water, the state of the water infrastructure, and the maintenance and monitoring performed. It is also necessary to consider our needs and constraints, which may be influenced by socio-economic circumstances, health needs, religious practices, or cultural mindsets.

We, teachers in English, mathematics, and physical education, have joined water researchers to co-design a tap water curriculum that centers our specific student population: predominantly Black and Latino male teenagers in the heart of Harlem in New York City, of various economic backgrounds, different migration status, diverse cognitive faculties. Emphasis is placed on students' hydration needs, discussing esthetics and taste, approaching engineering and filtration through the specs of their water fountains, discussing the actions of their custodial staff, using testing strips, and consulting governmental data platforms.

While we plan a comprehensive implementation for Spring 2025, we present our initial observations on a subset of activities that we tested, water data platform use, our collection of illustrative material, and students' voices that have nourished our process.

As lead exposure in drinking water has gained increasing attention after the 2014 Flint Water Crisis, it became a national issue. In response, the New York State Department of Health (NYSDoH) established regulations under Public Health Law for testing and reporting lead contamination in school drinking water systems. Beginning in 2016, schools were required to comply with a lead level threshold of 15 ppb with remedial actions taken for exceedances. This threshold was lowered in 2022 to 5 ppb, as no levels of lead are deemed safe, in particular for children.

This study analyzes NYSDoH datasets to provide a comprehensive overview of lead contamination in drinking water and the remediation progress in nearly 4,700 schools in over 700 school districts in New York State for 2016, 2020, and the ongoing period of 2023-2025. Analysis of the records indicates that approximately 30-40% of schools had outlets above the 15 ppb lead threshold in 2016 and 2020, and for 2023-2025, only a few schools have reported their data is compliant with the new standard of 5 ppb. In the past years, substantial remediation efforts have been made to reduce contamination, including shutting off specific outlets and replacing them.

Recommendations for future actions include improving data quality, ensuring immediate public notification of exceedances, and implementing continuous post-remediation monitoring to safeguard drinking water quality in NYS schools. This study highlights the urgent need for comprehensive measures to protect the health and well-being of children across New York State.