5th Graders Learn What It Takes To Keep Lake Superior Clean

SUPERIOR, Wis. — 5th grade students from the Superior School District are learning what it takes to keep Lake Superior clean.

The City of Superior Environmental Services Division has been providing tours of the Wastewater Treatment Plant for 28 years. The tour includes an indoor lesson, then an outdoor tour. The plant treats about 4-million gallons of wastewater a day. The hope is for students to understand where we get our drinking water from, where our waste goes, and what is being done to keep it clean as it goes back into the lake.

“The kids are seeing the process, they’re smelling the process, they’re seeing the large-scale complexity of wastewater treatment and disinfection that has been going on for years. And it keeps evolving. There’s more and more practices and research that’s being done to help make them better treatment and disinfection processes,” said Megan Hogfeldt, Water Resources Specialist in the Environmental Services Division for the City of Superior.

The reason 5th graders are taken on the tours is because their curriculum aligns directly with the engineering and processes that take place at the plant.