Creek Kids
Read MoreSurveyer with the purple hair
7th-grader Claudia Conrad, 13, peers through a surveying theodolite from the edge of Pigeon Creek's bank, toward a reflector on the railroad track bed about a hundred yards from the creek. By tracking the elevation of the creek bed over time, the class can record the rate that the creek bank is subsiding into the creek.
Adam Brewer, your princi-pal
Principal Adam Brewer takes a photo of 7th-grader Claudia Conrad, 13, as she surveys the elevation of the top of the bank of Pigeon Creek in Fallowfield Township. Brewer accompanied the students to Pigeon Creek for science teacher Howard Johnson's Stream Stewardship class, which monitors the health of five streams in the area.
Tracking elevation
7th-grader Dylan Terrant, left, peers through a prism from train tracks about a hundred yards from Pigeon Creek. Terrant, part of a Stream Stewardship class at Charleroi Area Middle School, sat at the constant elevation of the track bed so that the relative erosion of the creek bed could be recorded.
Magnifying the issue
8th-grader McKenna Williams, 13, tries to determine the species of a larvae collected from Pigeon Creek. Teacher Howard Johnson, foreground left, stirred up the creek bed into a fine net, which collected the creatures living in the mud so the students could do a population count. The presence of different species of invertebrates indicates the health of the stream.