It was a wonderful Fall afternoon near Kennilworth Park in Southeast Washington when a bus carrying Anacostia Community Museum Citizen Scientists, representatives from State Farm Insurance, and local academics from the University of DC and Howard University arrived to monitor the water quality of the Anacostia watershed. After the data collection, the team reconnoitered back at the Anacostia Community Museum’s program room for a presentation and luncheon honoring the State Farm Youth Advisory Board‘s funding of the Urban Waterways Citizen Scientist Program in 2016.

The State Farm Youth Advisory Board is a unique charitable giving board.  It is comprised of thirty students, ages 17-20, from across the United States and Canada. They are charged with helping State Farm design and implement a $5 million-a-year signature service-learning initiative to address issues important to State Farm and communities across the United States. The Anacostia Community Museum is grateful to State Farm and their Youth Advisory Board for making the Urban Waterways Citizen Scientist Program possible.

 

 

 

About the Citizen Scientist Program at the Anacostia Community Museum:

The Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum (ACM) Citizen Scientist Project (CSP) is an out-of-school time, scientific-inquiry-based enrichment program that introduces at-risk students to STEM concepts and careers through learning about the environment and civic engagement. CSP participants contribute to local, statewide, and national efforts to protect the Anacostia Watershed, one of the nation’s most densely-populated waterways. Program activities include independent and group research, field work that emphasizes science-based inquiry, public presentations, and behind-the-scenes access to Smithsonian scientists and educators.

Important community partnerships allow CSP participants to access professional facilities, world-class research and activities, and supplies and equipment facilitating meaningful community work. CSP began through a partnership with the United Planning Organization (UPO)—a nonprofit that serves low-income residents in the nation’s capital. The UPO group of 40 African American students hails from Washington’s Ward 7 and 8 neighborhoods which are largely affected by the degradation of the Anacostia River. The original group began the program as rising high school juniors, and will graduate this spring. A new cohort of rising sixth graders will join the UPO program this summer and will begin CSP activities in September.

Through CSP, the museum is training four classroom science teachers in Prince George’s County, MD to help implement this unique youth leadership program with students in an out-of-school time capacity. This will impact an additional 40 to 60 students in grades 5 through 12, serving predominately-minority student populations.  By engaging students in Prince Georges County and the District, CSP students will collect water quality data in two of the three jurisdictions of the Anacostia Watershed. Future plans to add classrooms in Montgomery County, MD will see the program “cover” the entire watershed with CSP activities.