“It was such an engaging experience,” lead educator Stephanie Thliveris said of her multidisciplinary project which taught students to examine the intersection between human rights and the health of waterways and to explore potential solutions to pressing environmental issues.

Centered around an introduction to human rights and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this four week project encouraged students to “apply fundamental physical principles such as chemistry and hydrology to social issues about water pollution,” according to Thliveris, who teaches science and sustainability at BFS. The project includes oral history gathering, individual research, peer reviews and consultations, presentation skills, critical thinking, and writing. 

In the Spring, 6th grade students at Buckingham Friends School (BFS) presented a slideshow and poster session about their research to community members. The presentations were a culmination of a weeks-long study about the water cycle and political and environmental issues surrounding water such as access to clean drinking water in Flint, Michigan, pollution in the Yellow River, and the health of local waterways in nearby Neshaminy Creek. 

Because the project encourages students to apply classroom knowledge to real world examples, it increases student engagement and offers them an opportunity to share their learning and think about actionable steps they could take to make a difference. Social Emotional Learning (SEL) skills such as self-reflection, social awareness, responsible decision making, and student voice are strengthened through this project as well by the consistent connection to the human rights context. 

Students began the project by practicing oral history skills as they asked their families and other community members about their personal experiences with water pollution. They then self-selected sites affected by water pollution with an emphasis on choosing sites that closely connected with their communities’ lived experiences. For example, student summaries of the New Jersey pipeline (movement of natural gas from New Jersey to New York), engaged their families’ activism. Other students investigated fracking contaminants to local waters in Pennsylvania.

After selecting a pollution site, students used primary source material to develop a summary of the site and to describe the human rights impact of the pollution using their knowledge of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the SDGs, specifically Article 25 (right to an adequate standard of living) and SDGs 6 (clean water and sanitation), 13 (climate action), 14 (life below water), and 15 (life on land). Over the course of the project, students began to understand the wide ranging and interconnected consequences of water pollution. 

Students discussed the connections they found between water pollution and human rights with other students throughout the project, giving them a deeper understanding of other sites and more insight into their own research topics. At the end of the project, students developed informational slides and posters with graphics that summarized their work. 

After participating in a peer review and revising their work, students had the opportunity to present their work to the community. One student, for example, presented on pollution in the Cape Fear River caused by Chemours, a chemical company which produces a chemical called GenX. The student’s poster listed the SDGs related to their research and detailed the ways the company’s practices affected every stage of the water cycle, demonstrating a detailed understanding of both scientific principles and human rights issues. 

Another student investigated why residents are advised not to eat fish caught in Neshaminy Creek, located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, near the school. Because of pollution, fish there have been found to have high levels of Perfluorooctane Sulfonate (PFOS). The student’s presentation showcased how human rights education can lead students to better understand and take action in their local communities. 

The power of the project rests in engaging students to think about their actions in their daily lives as they begin to shift their choices in real-time. One student stated, “My project came about because I was curious about how my daily activities contribute to water pollution in my hometown of Doylestown. [We] all know that humans can create a lot of water pollution, but what kinds? And how? … I also was inspired to find ways I and we can reduce the [water] pollution.”

After a successful presentation and poster session, Thliveris stated that “adults in the room were not only wowed with [the students’] presentation skills, but also that student work was connected to human rights and to a greater purpose in science education.” 

Learn more about how to incorporate human rights education in science classes in this webinar.

For questions or to share ideas about how you integrate human rights in your classroom, please contact Karen Robinson at robinson@rfkhumanrights.org. 

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Be on the lookout for information about our upcoming October screening of Water for Life, a film about three extraordinary individuals: Berta Cáceres, a leader of the Lenca people in Honduras; Francisco Pineda, a subsistence farmer in El Salvador; and Alberto Curamil, an Indigenous Mapuche leader in Chile, all of whom refused to let government supported industry and transnational corporations take their water and redirect it to mining, hydroelectric projects, or large scale agriculture. 

We will host a panel discussion about the film and will send accompanying lesson plans to those who register for the screening.