Everyone has an opinion on the State Route 169 asphalt plant right outside of Renton, even the students of Sartori Elementary School.
What started out as a fourth-grade lesson on the life cycle and habitat of salmon in the Cedar River quickly turned into a mission to learn about Lakeside Industries’ new asphalt plant.
“Kids will say their opinion,” said Carolyn Colley, a science coach at Sartori. “They’re not affected by politics.”
Starting in October 2022, fourth-grade students at Sartori began learning salmon in partnership with naturalists from the Environmental Service Center for their Four Part Salmon Heroes Program.
“We focused on learning about the river and the salmon,” said Colley.
“Lesson one is a mathematical model of the salmon from spawning to adult which includes going to the Cedar River to see the spawning and we travel with a naturalist and the kids get the temperature and pH of the water.”
During the second part of the program, parents chaperones, teachers and naturalists did a field study of the Cedar River where one parent began talking about the asphalt plant.
“A kid heard what the parent was saying, who passed it along to [fourth-grade teacher] Lynn Simpson, who told me,” said Colley, who had never heard of the asphalt plant before the field study.
“So the teachers and I thought it would be worth looking into to see if we could go that way in the upcoming weeks to give students a real-world issue to apply their science learning about salmon and habitat as well as learn more about decision-making in our community.”
Colley did preliminary research and gathered sources for a lesson plan that would supplement the salmon lessons.
“Given students’ prior learning about salmon health and habitat needs, they had some initial questions as to what potential impacts the asphalt plant at that location might have on the area, especially the river habitat, and what Lakeside planned to do to help,” said Colley. “So these nine- and ten-year-olds gathered information to better understand the issue by watching a variety of videos, studying photos and diagrams, reading newspaper articles, searching on websites, and exploring interactive maps.”
During this time, students created colorful and informative posters on salmon habitats and some students even began a “Salmon Club” at the school. From Oct. 31 to Nov. 23, 2022, students learned everything they could about the impact of the asphalt plant.
Students not only watched videos from Lakeside Industries about the benefits of the plant, but they also watched a video from the community group Citizens to Stop SR 169 Asphalt Plant.
“They took notes, reacted to, discussed, and compared the content of each video, then generated and sorted initial questions by theme or topic,” Colley said.
From there, teachers encouraged students to question initial assumptions they may have had about the asphalt plant, to talk about the different claims made by the sources, and to do the necessary research to answer their questions.
Some of the questions students had were: How does the asphalt damage the environment? Why does the plant need to be next to the Cedar River? Who is telling the truth? And if the salmon eat the asphalt, do they die?
By the end of the lesson series, most students came to the conclusion that the environmental impact of the asphalt plant would likely be negative, though some students argued the benefits that come from the plant creating jobs.
Students wrote and presented speeches on their opinions in regard to the asphalt plant and wanted their voices to be heard on the issue.
“It was a great preview of opinion writing,” said Colley. “Students learned about citing sources, about government and power. What power do we have as the community?”
Many students spoke about their opposition to the plant in speeches, often citing the taxpayer burden, negative environmental impacts or the potential damage to the Cedar River.
On the rare occasion, a student spoke in support of the plant.
A selection of Sartori Elementary School 4th grade messages, letters and speeches about the asphalt plants (names have been omitted for privacy reasons):
“I disagree with Lakeside Industries that your asphalt plant will be harmless to the environment and neighbors because it will add more trucks to the roads and more pollution to the river causing all types of fish to die. It will cause many complaints and the air will become more unbreathable and smoky because of this it may cause more deaths, due to lung injury. It will be bad for wildlife like animals and zoos. It may cause road fixes but there are many downsides and other things if you continue this will be bad for the environment so please move the project or stop it altogether.”
Another student said:
“I am against building the asphalt plant there because it can make the air toxic with the ingredients that they use in it and then people can get breathing problems or die. And if they build the plant it can pollute the water. And if that happens it can cause health problems for humans. It will also hurt animals. I am also against this because it looks like this plant they will make the air bad and that will hurt people that have a hard time breathing. We need to protect our Earth. Our Earth needs our help and it can be dangerous because it can catch on fire. This can also hurt the trees and animals near the plant. And I think that it is wrong to build a plant because for homeless people it can be hard for them because if the asphalt is near a homeless person then it can make them sick and die since they don’t have money for a good house.”
Some of the other student responses included:
“I think Lakeside should move the asphalt build site, and here’s why. Won’t the 460 trucks each weekday cause toxic air for the salmon and the people that live there to breathe? And another reason is will Lakeside really be able to keep getting anything bad in the river? And the Cedar River is drinking water to, like, one million people and if asphalt gets in the river so then water is bad to drink and bad for salmon that live there too.”
“I will tell you why asphalt could be harmful.
“1. It affects our drinking water. We drink from the cedar river, we get fresh, clean water. But if lakeside builds the asphalt there, then it’ll be harmful for our health if we drink polluted water.
“2. Asphalt could harm our environment because It is too close to our cedar river. And more trucks come and they could harm the world with smoke and polluted air. That could cause global warming. And I don’t want our world to be like that. So, that’s why I am against Lakeside building there. I don’t want any harm to come to our cedar river. Our cedar river is home to our environment. Also, Asphalt might pollute our water. Our water is our source of life. So if it gets polluted or runs out, Then bad things will happen to us. And the Cedar River is a sensitive environment.”
Photo by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing. As part of their scientific lesson, students did a preview on opinion writing, complete with drawings to illustrate their points.
Photo by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing. Sartori students created salmon posters in Fall 2022 as part of their Salmon Heroes lesson program, which led to students wanting to learn about how the asphalt plant would affect the local salmon.
