TEACHING WATER QUALITY TO YOUTH IN A FOUR-WEEK SUMMER CAMP PROGRAM, NORTHERN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

The D­ominican Republic Education and Mentoring Project (The DREAM Project) consists of a US-based nonprofit organization providing quality education experiences to underprivileged students at summer camps throughout the Dominican Republic. We developed in summer 2011 a four-week pilot science module for DREAM on the fundamentals of water potability and took 23 advanced students to three easily accessible site on the Yasica River. We also sampled several less accessible sites to complete the data set from headwaters to mouth. Major solutes were later analyzed at Syracuse University.

Students measured dissolved oxygen, nitrate, pH, total dissolved solids and temperature and learned how total dissolved solids and contaminant indicators, such as nitrate, increased from upriver to mouth. Total dissolved solids concentration furthest up-river increased from 159 part per million to 678 parts per million near the river’s mouth where seawater mixes with the stream water. Nitrate increased from less than 2.5 parts per million to 25 parts per million near the mouth. This increase documents septic waste or agricultural fertilizer being added to the river from the watershed. Dissolved oxygen levels decreased from 8 parts per million to 5 parts per million from headwaters to mouth, commensurate with oxidation of organic matter being introduced into the river.

Our project directly introduced economically disadvantaged Dominican students to easily accessible technology, and how water contamination can be qualitatively related to population density and natural sources. By all accounts, the students were engaged and enjoyed this educational module, unusual for summer camp activities in both the developed and underdeveloped countries. Most of all, given the low cost technology, this kind of project can easily be done in school settings throughout the world.