Guest Contributor
The history of Philadelphia’s water lies mostly underground, buried and dormant. Watershed maps show a slow and persistent erasure of the streams that once covered the city, branching capillaries that stretched from Chestnut Hill to South Philadelphia. With 73% of the city’s waterways piped, visible water now exists mostly in large bodies: the Delaware River, the Schuylkill River, and the Wissahickon Creek.
In West Philadelphia, an uncovered stream remains: Cobbs Creek, where 11 Penn students and 14 high school students from William L. Sayre High School gather on a mild morning for Rivers in a Changing World, an Academically Based Community Service (ABCS) class coordinated by the Netter Center for Community Partnerships. It is taught by Douglas J. Jerolmack, of the School of Arts & Sciences and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, in collaboration with LaRon Smith, a ninth-grade science teacher at Sayre.
This moment was two years in the making. The course grew out of a 2021 Projects for Progress award led by Ocek Eke of Penn Engineering to promote equitable access to STEM education for West Philadelphia students. Rivers in a Changing World uses environmental science and engineering to address climate change and encourage students to play an active role in their environment.
The Penn students learn alongside their high school counterparts, Jerolmack says. They lead small groups, teaching as they go. “That model, where students are co-learning and mentoring at the same time, is one of the really special parts about this course,” says Jerolmack, who is a professor of earth and environmental science and mechanical engineering and applied mechanics. “These students are stepping into a position of real responsibility.”
The Sayre students meet in 90-minute blocks, two to three times each week, depending on the schedule, says Sumaiyyah Fitchett-Fleming, one of the ninth graders. Every Wednesday, the group meets at Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Center, a West Philadelphia nonprofit with 850 acres of woods, creeks, meadows, and trails. This is what Fitchett-Fleming likes, she says, “being able to come here and learning about scientific things: what reduces erosion and what doesn’t, what affects the fish population.”
This story was written by Kristina García. To read the full article, please visit Penn Today.