STREAM TEAM: 14 OAK RIDGE STUDENTS WADE THROUGH STREAMS FOR DATA

As "stream dancers," Amy Strickland, left, and Dotty O'Leary stirred up the bottom of Apple Creek so that Kristie Reid and Sarah Riehn could catch specimens in the net.

OAK RIDGE -- A group of Oak Ridge High School students have been experiencing a different stream of information lately.

Called the "Stream Team," 14 of Oak Ridge's brightest students spend four days during the school year studying Apple Creek in a cooperative effort with three state conservation agencies.

Rahe Wise, stream team coordinator and Oak Ridge High School teacher, said the project is an attempt to educate the public about one of Missouri's natural resources.

"Missouri has 50,000 miles of streams and that's just an impossible task for any department or any three departments to monitor," Wise said. "Basically we try to inform the citizenry of the importance of the streams, making sure they're clean and the dangers that happen if they're not."

Oak Ridge's stream team is assisted by the Missouri Department of Conservation, Conservation Federation of Missouri and the Department of Natural Resources. The equipment the team needs is supplied by these agencies, and the information gathered is compiled by them.

Wise said she went to training in July to coordinate the stream team and approached her class in the spring about starting the program. The team kicked off its efforts at the beginning of this school year.

Wise's team monitors a section of Apple Creek that runs through property owned by a student's family. This makes getting to the stream safer and more convenient for team members.

The team performs a series of tests during a stream team operation. In one test, a number of students will do a "stream dance" where they shuffle their feet through the water to kick up organisms. Those organisms are caught in a net and classified.

"Depending on what kind of little animal and how many of them there are tells you about the health of your stream," Wise said.

She said some organisms are sensitive to changes in temperature, chemicals or gases in the stream. "If there's contaminants in the stream there's a lot of microorganisms that can't live there," Wise said.

She compares a list of favorable organisms, ones that indicate a healthy stream, to a list of unfavorable organisms. Black fly and Midge fly larvae are two organisms that would indicate a problem. "If you find those and not the others then you know you have a problem with the stream," Wise said.

The team also tests for chemicals, nitrates and how much dissolved oxygen is in the water. Team members also test water volume and flow.

They do this by setting up three measuring strips. They take readings from each strip to determine the depth of the stream, then time a tennis ball as it floats along a measured section.

"There's a lot of math and a lot of science, and then besides that we do litter pick-ups," Wise said. "It's a really hands-on practical experience that they can see how things like that affect their lives."

Wise said she was pleased when the class voted to continue the project through next year.

"I told them at the beginning this is not just a one year project. This is something we need to carry on with year after year," she said.

Joe Bachant, stream team coordinator for the Missouri Department of Conservation, said the project started as an information-gathering focus group and has branched into an invaluable volunteer organization.

Bachant said the state does not recruit stream teams, but a steady flow of volunteers has been contacting his office since the project began in 1989. The state has 946 community stream teams.

While schools benefit from the project's use of science, math and environmental studies, other groups are active in stream teams.

"We have been really surprised by the manhours these individuals elect to do," Bachant said. "It really started as a focus group run amok. But what it has done is made people pay more attention to the streams and water quality."

Sarah Riehn, an 18-year-old Oak Ridge senior and stream team member, said the project allows her to learn about the environment.

"You collect them and we count them and it's amazing how many little organisms are swimming around," Riehn said. "It makes you think about pollution and how easy it is to harm the environment and not even know it."

Riehn said she since she started with the stream team she's more conscientious about not littering. She said throwing something into a stream, even if it seems harmless, could cause untold damage.

She said the project has also given her a new outlook on swimming.

"It makes you think twice when you get in the water to go swimming; all those little things are in there with you," Riehn said.

Dillon Stahlheber, 16, a junior at Oak Ridge, said his work checking temperatures and pH balances with the stream team has given him a wider range of technical abilities and a new view of streams.

"I see them more technically now. I really didn't realize there was that much life. There were tons of little organisms," he said.

Stahlheber said he was surprised when the team took chemical readings and the stream tested cleaner than he expected. The stream team has given him a possible new career goal as well. He said he might pursue ecology as a field after graduation.

"It's real interesting all the little intricate systems that go on inside the stream. All the different ways things work," he said.