b'C H A P T E R S E V E NWithin days, the team had picked a winner: Jean Avery, chemistry teacher at Chatham High. Her proposal called for improving the Frost Fish Creek Water Quality field project, already six years old. She requested five items of equipment to help refine students measurements. Her goal was practical: to determine whether predicted threats to (the) Creek such as failed septic systems, fertilizer and pesticide use, and road-runoff, pose any definite danger to the water quality of the creek.In prior seasons, student testing hadshown consistently elevated .levels of nitrates .and (varying) fecal coliform levels.Year in, year out, these investigations had shown enough promise to stand as an integral part of the chemistry curriculum, in Mrs. Averys words.By the time EPAs regional coordinators visited Frost Fish Creek in October 2002, the teenagers QAPP (quality assurance project plan) had already earned the Federal agencys endorsement. That was meaningful: no other high school in the region had an EPA-approved QAPP, as Tim Wood reported in The Chronicle. Diane Switzer, EPA Regional volunteer monitoring coordinator, explained why this was of value. We cant be everywhere, she said. These people are our eyes and ears. Because the quality of the Frost Fish Creek data was assured, she added, those statistics might soon be posted in a national water quality monitoring database. Thats pretty good for a high school program, she concluded. Partisans could label that a modest understatement.Jean Averys project got the FCW education-support project going. In due time, the program welcomed the energies of two more directors, Jeanne Eaves and Lew Kimball, who joined in awarding funds for these successive activities:School year 2001-02:Sixth Grade Middle School teacher Cindy Macomber received $1,860 to design and build an indoor watershed model of the Lovers Lake/Ryders Cove ecosystem, following theTeacher Erik Berg with three of his science students at Jackknife Cove.He needed $500 to buy items of equipment for his Marine Biodiversity project.FCW met that request as one of its education grants for 2001-02.Gordon 7.ellner109'