Drain Rangers

We will be collecting data to help us answer this question: "What impacts does your school have on the watershed?" Below is some background information you will need to know before we get started.

What is a watershed?

A watershed, also called a drainage basin, is all the area of land that drains into one body of water. This video shows how watersheds work. You only need to watch until 3:57 in this video.

Where does the water go when there is a rainstorm?

When it rains on your home or school, the water runs off driveways, streets, and roads. The water goes underground through a storm drain into a storm sewer. Usually water from storm sewers are not treated before it's dumped into the nearest water body.

Stormwater pollution

In the Skagit River watershed, nearly all the water that goes into storm drains ends up being dumped in the Skagit River or directly into the Puget Sound. This means the stormwater that goes down the drain (called stormwater runoff) carries pollution to Puget Sound. This is the #1 way that pollution gets into the Puget Sound!

360 video of stormwater runoff

This is a 360-degree video (use the arrows on the upper-left corner to change your perspective) of stormwater runoff entering the Puget Sound via an underground storm sewer.

You will be given a group # and a "crew" to work with. Each group represents an engineer team that has been hired to propose a way to improve storwater runoff at this school. The first step is to understand how this school contributes to stormwater runoff. Each "crew" on your team will be taking data outside on a different aspect of the school.

The "pollution crew" will look for signs of pollution and will estimate how much stuff stormwater could pick up from the parking lot
The "flow crew" will find out where water would flow on the school grounds and estimate how much water rains on the parking lot each year
The "drainage crew" will test for how well the different surfaces on the school grounds drain - and estimate overall drainage averages for the school.

Impervious

This is what happens to stormwater on impervious surfaces - the water runs off!

Pervious

This is what happens to stormwater on previous surfaces - the water soaks in!

Semi-pervious

If water soaks into the ground so slowly that some stormwater would run off, we call it semi-pervious.

Before you go outside, remember:

Know what group you are in and stay with your crew.
Keep stay were your teacher and/or an adult volunteer can see and hear you
Be respectful for other students and adults
This is class time - not recess!

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