SVES students join CUC’s educational tour

Some 180 third grade students from San Vicente Elementary School attended an educational tour at the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. where they learned about the island’s hydrology, waste water treatment and laboratory testing conducted to ensure that the water distributed to island residents is safe and clean.

According to Pamela Mathis, corporate communications director of CUC, the agency offers six different tours to students, each lasting for about two hours. A separate session on the island’s power is conducted to those who wants to learn about the issue.

“We can even take them to the rain water catchment at the airport right in the middle of the runway,” said Ms. Mathis.

Students get a glimpse too of the career opportunities in CUC which include biology, engineering and journalism.

The educational tour, which is also part of Project WET, allows the students to learn how much of the earth is covered with water. Two games are held during the session: aqua bodies and incredible journey.

In the game aqua bodies, students lay down, draw their body and determine how much water is stored. As they play the game, they learn that people can live for 30 days without food but can only live three days without water.

In the game incredible journey, the students are taught where water is found: clouds, ground water, animals, plants, lakes, glacier, ocean, river and soil. “The main lesson they get here is that water moves, how an island is made up of water and distributed through the pipelines,” said Ms. Mathis.

And what are some of the students’ reaction to the session?

Shannon, a third grade student from M. Soria’s class wrote: “Thank you for teaching me about water and how it becomes clean and also how you test the water.”

Nicole Yamase wrote: “I really learned a lot from you guys at the CUC. I even had fun playing the aqua game.”

Another student said: “I like it when I went to the laboratory to learn about chloride. I love it when the water changes colors (during the testing). I also like seeing the ducks swim.

Aside from Ms. Mathis, the CUC staff who assisted in teaching the kids were David Yamartino, engineer in the Waster water Division; Melvin Tudela, member of the Water Division and Conservation Program; Pete Babauta, head of the Water laboratory; and Vanessa Camacho, Project WET facilitator. (LFR)