Toledo area high school students will wade into local streams this week (Wednesday, Oct. 17- Thursday, Oct. 18), taking water samples to test the quality of local aquatic ecosystems.

More than 250 teenagers are expected to participate in The University of Toledo sponsored component of the Student Watershed Watch, which is a Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments program to help students learn about local stream ecosystems.

The students will test the streams for temperature, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, pH, and many other parameters to determine the health of the water. The results of the sampling and testing will be presented at the Student Watershed Watch Summit on Nov. 14 at UT when participating schools release and compare their findings.

Through a National Science Foundation Gk-12 grant, the University’s Lake Erie Center sponsors eight schools providing the necessary equipment to high school science teachers and a UT graduate student helps the class with the project.

Schools participating in the UT sponsored portion of the 22nd Annual Student Watershed Watch include: Bowsher High School, Central Catholic High School,Clay High School, Northview High School, Ottawa Hills High School, Start High School and Toledo Early College High School.

The schools testing schedule is as follows: