Each year, UCLA Project ISSUES (Integrated Systems for Studying Urban Environmental Science) challenges its teachers to a three-day field trip in which they experience one final example of how to build science around a controversial or personally relevant environmental issue. The middle school, high school and community college professors trek north to explore sites where issues such as politics, disasters, and the human and environmental impact of taking water for the Los Angeles Aqueduct come alive vividly.

"You're kidding, right? This dried up and crusted-over red liquid can't be a lake. It's got a pH of 10!" As the unique chemistry of Owens Dry Lake is tested and analyzed, the environmental changes resulting from diverting its water to the reservoirs, houses, and city "down south" take shape. "So this is what happens when the tributaries are diverted! Do people actually breathe the salty dust blowing off the lake? Was this the water that made L.A. a big city?"

Further along, our "vegetation specialist" teaches us to identify both the local species and the invaders. Line transects help us discover the biodiversity of our region, the percentage of plant cover, and a transferrable field biology skill to use in vacant lots or campus lawns with our students.

"But what if you don't know any botany?" Easy, snip samples of stems, leaves and flowers, pop them in ziplock bags, and label them "Mystery plant #1, #2, #3,.."

"Pupfish? You mean there are fish in the desert?! No wonder they are endangered!" In bathing suits and shorts, armed with nets, buckets, and sunscreen, the project ISSUES Summer Dissemination Institute teachers brave the still, dark, and mucky waters to capture schools of pupfish. They scoop their silvery charges into buckets and walk them off to ponds and wetter areas. "Can't these critters get around on their own?" Yes, they swim to the next pond when one gets too shallow. But their numbers are so small, and the water so much less available these days, that they need some help to ensure that they make it.

"Tufa Towers? I don't see any buildings. Wow, what are those white things?" Walking the long trek to the current banks of Mono Lake gives the teachers an appreciation for how much water the lake is missing. The four tributaries, once destined for Los Angeles, are shunning the aqueduct and rewatering the Lake. Such an unusual ecosystem with brine shrimp, brine flies and water alkaline enough to clean our sweaty shirts! "Isn't this the lake that Mark Twain claimed to took the bark out of his dog?" Why is a certain elevation of water critical?

Did I learn "real" science?" Well, let's test the Mono Lake water and show how density is crucial to nutrient turnover and the brine shrimp lifestyle--or use the brilliant engineering design of the L.A. Aqueduct to illustrate siphoning--or test our local water for it's quality and run some plant transects across our abandoned "ag" area. Maybe I'll follow-up by teaching decomposition with the Lopez Canyon Landfill, or wetland preservation through Ballona creek. "Hmm...maybe I'll come back and do this again next year!"