New Haven has a number of contemporary issues that students may address. Students can examine air, water and land issues, and analyze the potential impact of current activities on a local species. Using some of the activities provided, for example, students can analyze the impact of expansion of the Q Bridge on the local flounder industry. Students may also examine a host of other local issues as well: the impact of New Haven’s Living City Initiative, expansion of Wyatt’s Oil Tanks on New Haven harbor, expansion of Tweed-New Haven airport, and construction on a new steel factory.
Students can examine the impact of pollution on another harbor resource: the flounder. Just the oyster production declined tremendously earlier this century, the flounder is currently as risk. The demise of the flounder is attributed to NPS pollution and affects students as consumers. Flounders are important to our local fishing industry.
A flounder faces high risk of toxic contamination because it spends much of its time half buried in sediment, where contaminants concentrate. Several studies have found elevated levels of copper, zinc and DDT in the tissues, which may cause sterility, threatening the population.
In just four years, from 1989 to 1993, the amount of winter flounder caught yearly fell 80%. Like the oyster, newly hatched larvae need the protection and food supply provided by wetlands. Factories and power plants are located near some of those nursery grounds. Students can write to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection for information of their fisheries program and the names and locations of these factories and power plants.
Analysis of the expansion of the Q Bridge serves as a model for a class activism project. Students will research the seven alternatives currently under consideration. Guest speakers from the City of New Haven may present these alternatives and the impact to the city. Students will study area water quality using data provided by the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, or gathered in conjunction with an Adopt-the-River program (see below). They may wish to examine water from New Haven Harbor, the Quinnipiac River or the Farm River. The Farm River is downstream from the highway crossing. Any runoff from the highway will affect this watercourse downstream of the crossing and testing of this river is encouraged.
Automobiles are a significant source of pollutants to water quality degradation, producing rubber from tire wear, asbestos, lead, chromium, copper and nickel from clutch/break wear, lead from fuel, and chlorides and sulfates from roadway wear and deicing compounds. Students may therefore examine one or more of these pollutant concentrations. Because chlorides and sulfates have been shown to contaminate bottom sediments which affect oysters and contribute to deteriorating oxygen levels, students should test these concentrations at various locations., Students should consider multiple water samples from locations which vary from their proximity to roadways.
Expansion of the bridge will also affect New Haven Harbor hydrodynamics. Hydrodynamics, the flushing times of the harbor, substantially affect pollution levels in estuaries. Flows from the area rivers, coupled with the effects of the tides, will mix pollutants and transport them seaward. Construction of the bridge will require dredging, which will affect Harbor dynamics and should be considered as students consider the Q Bridge alternatives. Flounder eggs are laid in harbors and any dredging for bridge expansion will severely cripple the population.
Adopt-the-River, sponsored by the Quinnipiac River Watershed Association provides water quality testing kits to document pollution sources. The kits are free of charge should the class wish to adopt a site along a local river. Free DEP and USDA technical support and advise are available as well. Members of the Quinnipiac River Association are very knowledgeable of and participant in the Q Bridge expansion debate. They may also wish to address your students as well.
Students may form teams which represent special interest groups affected by expansion of the Quinnipiac River bridge. Through this exercise, they will fully understand the affects of competing interests when addressing environmental policy concerns and current issues. For example, one team may be commuters from Clinton who seek expansion of the bridge. How long does it take to get to work? At 9:00 a.m., during rush hour? In the event of an accident? Students may monitor, record and chart current traffic conditions as reported in the morning traffic reports.
One team may represent the commercial fisherman, who caught only 550,000 pounds of winter flounder in 1993 but who had caught 5 million pounds in 1988. How much does a pound of flounder cost at the local market? How much money have commercial fishermen lost as a result of a deteriorating population due to pollution? What pollutants will increase if the Q bridge is expanded? How might their way-of-life be threatened?
One team may represent environmental impacts. Using data provided by the state, retrieved in research, gathered by students or obtained from speakers, students may examine the potential effect of Q Bridge expansion on the Flounder. Students will identify toxins (Chart, Appendix), trace the Flounder’s food sources and present arguments why certain bridge expansion options are more environmentally friendly to the Flounder.
The study of the Quinnipiac River expansion on the environment, including analysis of impacts on special interest groups is only one example of a classroom activism project. Resources provided in the bibliography will provide many other ideas for class activism projects. Other projects are tremendously more simple: students may, for example, embark on a project in school where they recycle all non-biodegradeable materials. Students should prepare a plan detailing what they could do to improve an ecological issue. Students will use information assembled when researching resources and provide an outline of their team effort. Students will present a plan to the class. Of particular importance will be an aspect of their report that includes the process by which they developed their plan. Did they all agree on the problem? The solution? Will any particular group of people or creatures win or lose something because of this plan?