Scientists and advocates

The ecology of Gordon’s pond has always been delicate.
 

During the pandemic, it got heavy use, for play and for learning, and the ecosystem began to struggle.
 

Third grade stepped in - this year’s eighth grade - to advocate for the pond and help lead its recovery.
 

Since then, third grade science classes have made the pond their business: collecting data in the fall, shaping proposed improvements in the winter, and helping implement them in the spring.
 

Every year, their partner is the school’s Buildings and Grounds committee, which currently includes our Buildings and Grounds Director Eddie Dalo, science teacher and Green Dean Cush Gillen, and Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Head for Campus Operations and Auxiliary Programs Tom Cicatiello.
 

This year’s third grade met with Mr. Cicatiello, Mr. Dalo and Dean Gillen right before break.
 

This year’s challenge? Third grade had discovered that the fish that were introduced into the pond in June had not made it through the summer.
 

The students had ideas.
 

They pitched their ideas carefully and respectfully, focused on the goal of restoring the conditions that would allow fish to thrive in the pond, along with the plankton, tadpoles, turtles frogs and birds that would signal a healthy and complete ecosystem.
 

It quickly became a back-and-forth, with Mr. Dalo reporting out about his own questions and concerns, and explaining what he’d been trying independently. 
 

Some of the strategies they discussed were new: adjustments to the fountain, for one, and some novel ways to prevent salt runoff from the streets.
 

But there also was the perennial question of how to handle cattails, a species that removes salt from the pond and helps maintain the pH, but one that also spreads easily and can turn the pond swampy very quickly. 
 

When the conversation ended, Mr. Dalo left with several third grade recommendations, and numbers for the students’ ideal pH and dissolved oxygen levels.
 

The adults also left third grade with a few assignments, including a request to research plants that would add dissolved oxygen to the system.
 

Most importantly, the adults and the students had finally met and connected.
 

They’d established some measurable goals based in science.
 

And now for the rest of the year, and in the years ahead, they will be able to hold each other accountable for caring for this shared resource.

 

The third grade's work takes place in a larger context of student-drived habitat restoration. From December 2024, an overview of Gordon's wetlands gives a sense of the big picture.