Revitalizing a pond at the Lincoln Park Zoo is no small project.

The South Pond Project has spawned interest at more than 30 high schools and middle schools in the Chicago area, as well as professors and graduate students in the School of Education and Social Policy.

The schools’ students collect ecological data from the pond, and SESP provides data-collecting software and teacher training at the schools. The students’ work includes calculating the number of species living in the pond and the number of pollutants in the water.

The data will be used to revitalize the pond’s ecosystem. Another part of the project is creating an indoor laboratory with interactive work stations, which is expected to open in a few years.

“Being able to do this (project) is what science teachers yearn for,” said Maryanne Kalin-Miller, a seventh grade biology teacher at Francis Parker Middle School in Chicago. “It’s been a wonderful experience for us. It’s a science teacher’s dream come true.”

The South Pond project began a year ago in an attempt to make the South Pond look more like the North Pond at the zoo, Larson said. The North Pond was revitalized in a renovation project eight years ago and is now in much better shape.

“(The South Pond) is a beautiful spot, but if you look at it closely, the retaining wall is falling down and the water quality is not so great,” said Mark Larson, the director of education at the Lincoln Park Zoo. “Collecting this data will help us decide what to do with the pond.”

SESP helped the young researchers by providing access to MyWorld, software that allows students to visualize and analyze data. Professors and graduate students also are running workshops with teachers at the middle schools and high schools involved with the project to teach them to work the program.

“(MyWorld) was specifically designed to be easy to use in the classroom, so that you don’t need much technical support,” said SESP Prof. Kemi Jona. “It gives students a chance to see how data is used by scientists and how data is used to make decisions. This is an important way that science can become more meaningful for kids.”

Liza Pono, an Education graduate student, is working with students and teachers at Francis Parker Middle School as part of a graduate project that began this quarter. She said she plans to provide support with MyWorld until the end of the summer and create a related curriculum the zoo can use for other students.

“When I first heard about (the project), I immediately jumped on board,” Pono said. “Just like the students, I felt connected to this project because I’m also from Chicago.”

Northwestern is also allowing students to use the Collaboratory ePortfolio, an online program which allows students to share documents and data.

The program will help schools across the Chicago area share the collected information about the pond since not all of the schools can come to the zoo on the same day, Larson said.

Reach Allan Madrid at [email protected].