Shorecrest MS Partners with EarthEcho Water Challenge

Shorecrest Middle School is diving deeper into environmental science topics this year through a new partnership with the EarthEcho Water Challenge, a global community science program that trains young people to monitor local water quality and contribute their findings to a worldwide database.

The partnership builds naturally on work already underway in Shorecrest's eighth grade marine science curriculum, where students study water ecology and cultivate new bay grasses to help stabilize local shorelines. Through the Water Challenge, students will test water samples from nearby waterways — measuring factors like pH, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity — and upload their data to EarthEcho's global monitoring platform, monitorwater.org, joining a network of more than 1.6 million participants in 147 countries.

The program gives Shorecrest students hands-on training in real scientific methods while connecting their local coastline work to a larger, international effort to protect waterways. Fitting with our Middle School focus on project-based, interdisciplinary learning - students won't just read about environmental science, they'll practice it, generate real data, and see how their local findings fit into a global picture.

Students will begin water testing this semester, with plans to track results over time and compare seasonal changes in local water quality. The Water Challenge network has a collective goal of completing 100 water improvement projects annually across all partners and ambassadors combined. When MS completes and logs a project, it will be counted toward the shared network-wide goal of 100 projects.

Learn more about the EarthEcho Water Challenge at monitorwater.org.