Watershed Detectives earn stewardship award

The city’s Watershed Detectives program has been awarded the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District’s Groundwater Stewardship Award for its educational work with middle school students. The program, which is part of the Watershed Protection Department, includes “field investigation” field trips in which students have gone caving, conducted water quality testing and participated in other educational activities at off-campus locations around Austin. The Watershed Detectives also have a program that gives students the opportunity to solve mysteries based on real-life events. For example, according to the city’s announcement about the award, “The ‘Fish Kill Mystery’ curriculum is based on a true pollution event that happened in 1979 in the Country Club Creek Watershed. The students investigate a polluted pond where 200 fish were found dead to determine the source of the pollution.” More than 2,000 middle school students participate in the program each year.