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Spring
2002
Grant
and Colton Shepard:
Stream Team
In
the last 12 years, Grant Shepard has saved gas, bicycling
more than 11,500 miles. Grant is 12.
"Every
mile on a bike prevents one pound of carbon monoxide from
going into the air," Grant says. Doing their part to
cut down on pollution, Grant, his 14 year-old brother, Colton,
and their father, Drake, bicycle at least 100 days a year.
Drake,
who homeschools the boys, explains that bicycling is part
of a hands-on project that teaches ecology in three areas:
water, land, and air. Bicycling helps improve air quality,
and the three help the land by working to reclaim an old
oak savanna in Thatcher Woods near their home in Oak Park.
To learn about water quality, Grant works with the Illinois
Department of Natural Resources, Ecowatch stream monitoring
program, collecting insects each spring in Salt Creek.
Colton
monitored the stream for three years before he left home
last fall to attend the Illinois Math and Science Academy.
A young but well-spoken high school sophomore, Colton describes
his observations. "I looked at data for all the streams
we’ve been monitoring, and they seem to be slowly becoming
less polluted," he says. "However, I haven’t
seen any major changes."
The
brothers’ activities have earned them national recognition.
In spring 2001, they were featured as "Hometown Heroes"
in Time for Kids magazine; and recently Grant received the
President’s Environmental Youth Award for the Midwest
region from the EPA. Colton’s instructional article
on stream monitoring was published in the quarterly newsletter
of the Young Entomologists Society, which enjoys a circulation
of 3,000 copies worldwide.
Currently,
Colton is working on what he terms "the biggest advocacy
yet." He and two classmates are creating a digital
presentation called "Real Science," which will
be distributed on CD-ROM to classrooms around the country.
"We want to tell young people in elementary and junior
high school that they can make a difference," Colton
says. "I think that’s important. This is the next
generation. I’m teaching them."
—
Shanna M. McGarry
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