Almost half of New Hampshire households rely on private wells for their water. Many of those wells are contaminated with arsenic, a naturally occurring element that can cause cancer and other diseases.
But most people don’t test their water for arsenic, and private wells aren’t regulated by federal or state governments, leaving families without the knowledge of their level of exposure.
Bruce Stanton, a professor at Dartmouth, has been trying to change that for years. As his team studied arsenic, a community outreach coordinator went to town meetings. But, he said, those aren’t always well attended.
A few years ago, he had an idea for increasing testing: teach kids how to do it. He worked with Jane Disney, a scientist at the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Maine who has experience running citizen science programs. Together they reached out to 27 schools, asking science teachers to participate.
“Our thought at the time was: if we get the kids engaged, they would not only learn about science, math, technology, but they would also, if their wells tested positive, they would go home and tell their parents,” he said.
Parents want their kids to be happy and healthy, he said. They figured hearing about the contamination from kids could help encourage the adoption of remediation systems.
According to a study recently published in Environmental Health Perspectives, they were right.
Over the course of six years, middle and high school students and some college undergraduates collected 3,070 samples of drinking water from their homes or the homes of community members.
About 24% of the samples exceeded New Hampshire’s arsenic standard of 5 parts per billion. (The state’s standard is lower than the national standard, 10 parts per billion).
Some families switched water sources after finding out about the arsenic levels, while others said the testing helped them learn more about arsenic and their exposure.
In eight towns across New Hampshire and Maine, the school programs have more than doubled the number of wells that have been tested between 2016 and 2022, compared with data sets held by state health departments.
For Stanton, one of the big successes was kids getting involved in spreading the word about arsenic and expanding their scientific skills. Students wrote newspaper articles, presented data at town meetings, even came up with the idea to re-test water filters Dartmouth researchers had tested to see if they were as effective as scientists thought.
“A lot of kids get turned off by science,” he said. “It’s kind of boring to read in a book. But if you actually do it, even if you don’t turn out to be a scientist, it gives you an appreciation of the scientific method.”
With another grant, Stanton and his team are working to expand the program, looking to reach more students and test for other contaminants like PFAS.
