Students Test the Waters

8:50 a.m. Warm sunlight slants across steep mountains as Frank Kuhn stands on a boulder and surveys the bottom of a canyon that looks like some High Sierra granite river gorge, only covered with graffiti.

Wearing jeans, an oversized tan shirt, sunglasses and a Crocodile Dundee hat with a chin strap, the lanky Kuhn looks more like an archetypal adventurer than a science teacher leading 39 teenagers from El Monte’s Arroyo High School on a field trip to the west fork of the San Gabriel River.

They had traveled last Tuesday by bus to this small stream off California 39 to monitor its health by counting aquatic insects along its shore, sampling its water for signs of pollution and measuring its flow, depth, even pebble sizes. A formal report of their findings will be presented later this year to the U.S. Forest Service.

Kuhn, 51, has built an entire science curriculum around this trip. Learning the proper use and care of field equipment improves students’ cooperative and analytical skills while introducing them to careers in water quality and forest and stream management. Preparing team reports, graphs and photographic displays based on their findings enhances writing, math and communications skills.

And having students of different academic abilities work side by side to gather and analyze scientific data, he hopes, will foster environmentalism and inspire all of them to seriously consider pursuing a college education.

9 a.m. Students tote bins crammed with provisions and equipment to the stream’s edge. Kuhn says there is no better place for “our El Monte mission impossible” than this stream--a semi-wild place only an hour’s drive from millions of people.

9:15 a.m. Kuhn gets down to business beside some shallow pools that are ideal for his brand of in-the-muck high school biology.

“We’re going to get our hands wet and dirty and experience nature and scientific field work firsthand,” says Kuhn, who first cast a fly line in this stream 27 years ago.

Barking orders like a drill sergeant with a sense of humor, he unpacks his gear--seines, flasks, chemical test kits, measuring tapes, disposable cameras, microscopes, rubber gloves, waders and granola bars--and hands it out to students.

“Listen up wart hogs! Bug girls, get your waders on! Guys, stay out of the river until I tell you to get in!” he yells. “Don’t drink the water. Take lots of pictures. Think about how your own lifestyles and attitudes can impact this environment.”

9:45 a.m. With contagious enthusiasm and energy, Kuhn tells a group of students that the eight-mile-long west fork provides the best fly fishing close to the Los Angeles area.

He says the stream helps recharge a metropolitan aquifer in the flatlands below. Every plant and salamander, algae bloom and bug contributes to the stream’s vitality.

“Some of you are vegetarians,” he adds. “Most of the insects you’ll be catching eat leaves. That’s why autumn is a good time to be a bug around here.”

10 a.m. The students wade into the chilly water and eagerly set to work.

In one pool, a determined young man scoops up three Santa Ana suckers with a plastic container and hollers, “Mr. Kuhn, check these little guys out!”

A few yards away, two students lean against big rocks to steady themselves against the current while using seines to catch insects kicked out of the mud upstream by classmates.

Every dip of the net yields unexpected treasures--mayfly larvae with feathery gills, stonefly larvae with two hair-like tails, water beetles--which they pick up with forceps and sort in ice cube trays filled with water.

11:30 a.m. Forest Service hydrologist Vic Andresen, who volunteered to help out on the trip, shows a dozen students how to calculate the contour of the rocky stream bed. “I get a kick out of doing this,” he says, sloshing across the river in jeans.

12:30 p.m. Gregory Jimenez is soaked, but that doesn’t dampen his spirits.

Sitting in the sun on a granite ledge, the 17-year-old says he has never been up in these mountains before, even though he has lived in Glendora for four years. Now, he says, “I’ll be coming up a lot. It’s nice here.”

“What a great field trip, man. Usually, we go to a museum, look at some bones and go home,” he says. “But this is all outdoors and we can feel the things we’re studying with our hands.”

“And just look at me--taking the temperature of the river, checking its acidity,” he adds proudly. “Maybe I should try to become a forest ranger. Of course, I’ll have to get my grades up first.”

“You can do it, Greg,” Kuhn says. “Even two years of junior college can help you get some kind of job in forestry.”

“Yeah?” Jimenez says. “I want the name of that junior college.”

1:10 p.m. Before leaving, Kuhn shouts a final order: “To show how much you like this environment, pick up all the trash you can find.”

“But avoid broken glass and needles,” he says. “We don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

2:45 p.m. The students arrive back at school exhausted, yet buoyed with excitement from what they accomplished. Kuhn offers to help Jimenez enroll in Citrus College’s forestry program. When it was all over, Kuhn said, “Mission accomplished.”