Amphi REACH/GLOBE Sweetwater Wetlands

Artist: , Wilson, Grade ?, 1995,

[wetlands sign]
Artists: Kevin Chandler and Bobby Lapore, Wilson, Grade ?, 1997

Location

Dedication Ceremonies (3/19/98)

Students and Teachers from the Amphitheater REACH gifted program joined the Mayor of Tucson and officials of Tucson Water Company to officially open this facility. The wetlands provide a rich wildlife habitat in this desert environment and is designed to provide enhanced treatment of secondary waste water effluent. The students helped engineers and hydrologists over the last two years with landscaping and the design of public access and interpretive signage. These students, from Wilson K-8 school, have also started making baseline GLOBE observations to monitor this rich environment.
Photos:Roseann Lopez, Amphi REACH Coord. (left) and Elise and Mary, student representatives (right).

Elise and Mary's Dedication Speech, written by Bobby Lepore

Photo: Overview
When most people hear Arizona, the first word that comes to mind is heat. Which of course is true, it is hot in Arizona, but as the saying here goes, "It's a dry heat". In other words, there is very low humidity in Arizona. This has an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that it is much more comfortable for Arizona residents. The disadvantage - we sometimes find our water supply somewhat short of that required for Arizona's growing population.
Photo: Cattail Habitat
So Tucson City Water came together to attempt to at least make a step toward solving the problem. They came up with an idea - the Wetlands. The Wetlands was to use a completely natural method to recycle recharge and reclaim water. Recharge water would pass through a special selection of plants and settling ponds, and when it comes out, it would be reused. Though it would not be quite clean enough to drink, it would be clean enough to supply much needed water for grass and plants at Golf courses, schools, and parks.
Photo: Open Water and Ducks
Meanwhile in Tucson, the REACH ( or Gifted program. An acronym for Realizing Excellence through Academic and Creative Help) program was asked by Tucson Water to act as Public Consultants to the Wetlands. They wanted REACH to promote the idea, give tours and be experts able to answer questions. So they then designed things like paths, and outcrops for tourists, logos, they gave tours, sold shirts and answered questions. Three years later, the same forth graders, now in seventh grade, were participating in GLOBE as well as the wetlands as part of that year's REACH program. As part of their GLOBE investigations, they took measurements at the Wetlands. They took water samples at different times during the filtration process. They tested soil, monitored wildlife, and observed weather conditions to see if the Wetlands was causing a slight temperature change in downtown Tucson- a theory that had been noted as a possibility.
Photo: Ambassadors
And when opening day for the Wetlands finally came, the students led groups of people on tours around the Wetlands and told about their GLOBE research. Today, the class continues to be Ambassadors to the Wetlands and to take observations for GLOBE.

Tour the Wetlands

Inlet

UA/GLOBE Home; Last updated: 4/7/98, Comments? globe@hwr.arizona.edu
Kudos! Terrie Cubillas, REACH Teacher