Prescription Drugs in Our Water

By Kerri Sosnowski, NIU STEAM Educator

For World Water Day on March 22, we’re sharing a series of blog posts diving more deeply into this vital resource.

Recently our NIU STEAM staff had the opportunity to participate in a learning experience about substance abuse and our youth. We were all very grateful for the timely and eye-opening information gathered from Northwestern Medicine professionals. One valuable and actionable takeaway that reminded me of one of our summer camps is the National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. This spring that day falls on April 22.

There are many of us that do not know the proper way to dispose of prescription medication or why. Flushing or throwing away your medications leeches them into our waterways, ground water and soil. To find out more about the effects this has on our wildlife, check out these articles: Pharmaceuticals in Wateror There’s Active Drugs in Our Drinking Water: What’s Being Done?.

How does this relate to the STEAM Seekers elementary day camp? We will be taking a field trip to one of NIU’s lagoons and gathering water samples to look at them under a microscope. We’ll ask: What do the students observe? What is present that they cannot see with the naked eye? Should they drink the water? Why or why not? How do they think what they see got in the water? Was it perhaps flushed down the toilet? To learn more about this and all of our NIU STEAM summer camps visit niusteamcamps.com.

If you’d like to start learning now, here are a few fun investigations to do with water at home.

1. If you have a magnifying glass or microscope, pour yourself a glass of water from the tap, gather some water from an outside puddle or stream, and pour water from a store-bought bottle. Make predictions about what you will see in each sample. Make observations about all three. What are the similarities and differences? Why do you think that is the case? Were your predictions correct?
   
2. Investigate the differences between distilled, spring and drinking water that is sold in stores. Are there any differences between them? If so, what are they? In what situation would you need each type of water?
   
3. Plant three of the same type of plant in three different containers. Keep all the variables the same, changing only the type of water you use to water them. Water one with tap water, one with bottled water and one with water gathered from an outside source. Record daily observations. Are there any noticeable differences? Why do you think that may be?

To find out more about DeKalb County’s prescription drug take back locations visit this page from the DeKalb County Health Department.