“Confluence” refers to the merging of two rivers. According to Brant Miller, the University of Idaho professor spearheading the Confluence Project, that name was chosen for the intersectional nature of the project.
“The Confluence Project essentially is the model for graduate students to support local high schools to take students in the field to learn about water quality, water quantity and also ecosystem based function,” Miller said.
For three years, the Confluence Project has been influencing the learning of Idaho high school students, Miller said. He said in previous years, the project has been sustained with funding from the National Science Foundation and from private foundations in Idaho. Yet that won”t be the case this year, thanks to a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Miller said.
“We received $91,000 from the EPA and then we have around $30,000 matching funds from the university that support this project for one year,” Miller said.
He said this funding will pay for transportation, materials and teacher stipends among other associated expenses. The grant was awarded in August and will expire in July 2016, he said.
Miller said the grant arose from opportunities presented toward the end of the GK-12 Program, which involved graduate students visiting high school classrooms and using their scientific expertise to support local teachers and help them develop curriculum.
“So we have six teachers that we”re supporting right now and each one of them has a different teaching context. So we have AP environmental science, we have freshman Earth Science classes, and everything in between,” Miller said.
He said there are four parts to the project, three of which are field experiences involving water quality, water quantity and ecosystem based function. These field experiences usually occur between September and March, and the order in which they happen is dependent upon the school, Miller said.
The field experiences at the participating schools ultimately culminate with the Youth Water Summit, he said.
Miller said students at the Youth Water Summit present their findings with a poster or through a speech. The summit, which occurs April 18-19 at UI, also gives students the opportunity to see the university campus and, if they haven”t already, begin thinking about higher education.
“Being able to take kids beyond their school walls or “¦ beyond their classroom to learn in authentic and meaningful ways about how some of these very complex social ecological systems are interacting is – can be really transformational,” Miller said.
He said The Confluence Project aims to create a system where students, teachers and stakeholders can come together around a common local issue.
Ultimately they want to look at how the project can be sustained without grant dollars, possibly with the support of participating schools, although in the near future outside funding will be necessary, he said.
Miller said they have submitted a proposal to the NSF in order to continue work for the next four years and he hopes the Confluence Project will expand and grow in the future.
“We”re doing everything we can to leverage the very generous EPA support to keep building this project,” he said. “I think we have a really good model and we have some really good momentum around this work with local teachers and local entities.”
Nina Rydalch can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NinaRobin7