Without question, my favorite task as part of the education team at San Diego Coastkeeper is teaching lessons for ProjectSWELL. Project SWELL (Stewardship: Water Education for Lifelong Leadership), a school-based science curriculum, teaches K-6 students about the importance of the San Diego region’s waterways. Usually, Project SWELL offers free SWELL kits, curriculum and professional trainings for educators. But this year, the Stiefel Behner Charitable Fund has made it possible to give one hands-on lesson at every school in the San Diego Unified School District. 

I go on solo missions to second grade classrooms with the goal of educating and inspiring our future leaders to care about water quality. In class, we create a model that shows how water carries sediment down an incline. After experimenting with water and earth materials, we add pollution. We put plastic, paper and aluminum on the slope and watch rain move the pollution downstream and straight into the ocean.

When I walk around with green and red food coloring to simulate pet waste and car oil, there is always an awesome simultaneous “ewwww!” I’m excited to watch the class engaged with water, pollution and solutions. The kids are stoked, the lesson is important, and the teachers are all helpful and enthusiastic.

Hearing children’s solutions to pollution is refreshing and exciting. A second grader from Miramar Ranch Elementary had the best solution I’ve heard so far. “I would vacuum the world!” How awesome is that?

To learn more about Project SWELL, visit the Project SWELL website.