Water Testing Project

Last week, my students and I participated in the "Water Testing Project" organized by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) of Peace Corps Ukraine. EWG was awarded a grant by the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers association of Northern California (RPCV NorCal) to conduct water testing in every oblast of Ukraine. I conducted a lesson for 5th graders about water pollution in Russian, with the help of one of our English teachers Liliya Nikolaievna.

with the 5B class that participated in this project. 

Most people in Ukraine either drink water drawn from a well or straight from the tap. Some people (who can afford it) buy bottled water from trucks that drive around selling distilled water, and very few Ukrainians have water filters such as Brita pitchers. Peace Corps Volunteers in Ukraine are told not to drink water straight from the tap -- each town has its own legends of people losing teeth or developing health issues because of the local water. Liliya and I taught about the different sources of water pollution and the dangers of water pollution to the environment and to people.

Water is important for bathing!

These kids were super excited for their 1st lesson taught with a projector.

Liliya discussing the translation of the video with the students. 

Next, we watched a short video showing a news report on water pollution in Ukraine. Since these are only 5th graders, we read the translated transcript of the video in Ukrainian first. Then we looked at a table of different chemicals that can be found in tap water, and discussed the different sources of these chemicals and their effects on the body.

Reading the chemical chart - some of them didn't know what chemicals like sulfate, nitrate, etc were because they don't have Chemistry class yet. 

After that, the students worked in 4 groups to count and sort out different "chemicals" that were found in their "water" (a Ziploc bag filled with small squares of paper with different colored dots drawn on them). They graphed their results on a worksheet and then presented them to the class.

Explaining what each different dot means. 

Counting and sorting the little pieces of paper. 

The last part of the project was everyone's favorite - the part where we actually tested the water! We used small plastic cups, filled with tap water from the school bathrooms. We did the water tests together, so that I could make sure that each testing strip was kept in the water for the right amount of time. We recorded the results of the tests and then sent them back to EWG to be included in the water testing map of Ukraine!

Tanya dipping the test strip into the cup. 

One of the boys testing the copper level of the water. 

The test strip turned orange! 

For more information about this water testing project, you can go to the EWG website - you can find all the lesson plans and check out the interactive map of the water test results from every oblast! My project hasn't been added to the map yet (for Kharkiv oblast), so here are our results:

Test for:	Actual Values	Dangerous Values
Bacteria (E. Coli)	(not completed)	>0
Chloride	500	> 250 mg/L
F. Chlorine	0.25	>4.0 ppm
Copper	0.5	>1.3 ppm
Iron	0	>0.3 ppm
Mercury	0.002	>2.0 ppb
Sulfate	0	>250 ppm
Nitrate	0	>10 ppm
Nitrite	0	>1.0 ppm
pH	7.5	<6 .5=".5" or="or">8.5
Alkalinity	350	No general standards, although 20-200mg is typical for freshwater
Hardness	425	Values: Soft (0-120) Hard (121-425) Very Hard (>425)

English Week 2012!

Last week, the other English teachers and I prepared a series of open lessons and extra-curricular competitions for English week in our school. As usual, I prepared some decorations for the door to my little mini-classroom. I've found that the students love checking out whatever I post on my door, so its actually one of the most effective ways of advertising my events and projects to my students.

Don't laugh at my crayon drawings....

I prepared a poster about school rules for one of my English teachers.

We started off the week on Monday with a small assembly of 2nd through 4th form students. Three girls from the 7th form prepared a presentation on why English is important in our lives, and they translated it into Russian for the younger students. I tried to capture what our hall assemblies look like, but the lighting from the big windows makes it difficult.

The first competition of the week was for 10th form students. Students from the 10A and 10B classes split into 2 teams and answered a series of trivia questions about Great Britain, including geography, government, history and of course the major facts about London.

The Rainbow team. 

Team Smiles with their teacher, Svetlana Ivanovna. 

Two of the students acted as hosts for the competition (or "leaders", as they refer to it in Russian) and the English teachers served as the jury panel. 

The setup of the competition. 

Students answering questions from the hosts. 

Next, the 9th form students prepared some projects about environmental protection and presented them during an open lesson. An "open" lesson is when anyone is permitted to come and observe the lesson, this usually means that the director or one of our vice principals will attend the lesson.

Diana from 9A presents her project about the different ideas of things you can do with an old candy box. 

Katya from 9A presents the 3 R's.

Misha from 9A presents about water pollution.

Tanya from 9V with her leaflet about 7 important environmental problems. 

Katya from 9V presenting her project about the protection of whales. 

I organized an after-school competition for students from the 4th form with another one of the English teachers. I only teach the 4A class, but the 4th graders love coming to my English club to play UNO every week. We had the kids divide into 2 teams and they competed to see which team could complete coloring and matching worksheets faster and correctly. We also learned and sang Old MacDonald Had a Farm together :)

The team from 4B. 

The students from 4A. 

Explaining the different tasks in the competition. 

Connecting the dots with the alphabet... this was completely candid and its my favorite photo. 

Liliya Nikolaievna checking one of the worksheets. 

Teaching the words to Old MacDonald. 

A vocabulary game - I said a word in Russian and they had the find the correct translation in English. 

The 4B students. 

With my students from 4A. 

This year, the Men's Day holiday was in the middle of English week. This holiday is not an official school holiday, but women in Ukraine still give cards and small gifts to their husbands, sons and friends to celebrate it (similar to Father's Day in the US).

The girls from 11A welcomed all the male students into the school by congratulating them. 

The girls from 5A organized some interesting contests... including apple eating. 

They also had a mini-show for their class party, including dancing :)

Men's Day was traditionally celebrated as Soviet Army Day in the past, but it has now been changed to the Defense of the Fatherland Day (День защитника Отечества). My teachers had prepared a small lunch party (in the regular Ukrainian style) and we celebrated this holiday after the school concert. A few old veterans from WWII came to our school concert and I wanted to take a photo of them, but I was afraid to ask because I didn't want to be rude. But it was amazing to see that they were so decorated with medals and its crazy to think that they were young men on the battlefield during the war.

One of the 11th form girls singing at the school concert. 

The lunch table... complete with sandwiches, salo, and pickes!

A few of my teachers with our physics teacher Yuri Alexeyevich. 

An ensemble of our teachers singing for the male teachers. 

We finished up English week with a display of the students' project work. There were reports on the environment from the 9th form, media/press in Ukraine from the 8th form, leaflets about sports from the 6th form, recipes for cooking from the 5th form, and different drawings from 4th form.

Sasha, Inna and Leyla from the 9A class with their projects. 

And the final competition of English was was about pancakes, but this has already been a super long post so I will write about it separately in my next post :D