How healthy is your local urban ecosystem?

A student from Central Falls High School wades in
the Blackstone River in search of living organisms. 

By Jenn Kelly, After School Program Manager

How healthy is your local urban ecosystem?

That is the question four local high school environmental science classes are trying to answer.

Students from Central Falls High School, 360 High School in Providence, and Woonsocket High School are participating with Save The Bay's “Narragansett Bay Field Studies” program. Throughout the school year, they head out into nature to study their local environment and conduct routine tests with us, examining water quality and human impacts and identifying vegetation. By the end of the school year, they'll have collected data continuously and will present an assessment of their findings on the health of their local environment.

A student from 360 High School tests the
pH of water in Narragansett Bay. 

The Narragansett Bay Field Studies program also includes a full-day marine science cruise aboard our education vessel with a stop at Prudence Island to investigate a salt marsh. There, students pull on boots and waders to explore the marsh at Jenny’s Creek, looking for fiddler crabs, ribbed mussels and mummichogs.

Working in partnership with each of the high schools’ environmental science teachers, each class will also be working on a civic action project of their choice. 360 High School has been researching microplastic pollution while Central Falls High School is researching recycling. Tune back in during spring 2018 for our results!