poop heaven

This summer, I went to an AP workshop to learn how to teach an advanced class. It was great because I learned a lot of stuff about the environment that I did not know, and was exposed to the kinds of labs and activities these kids need to be able to do in order to pass the AP Exam. I’ve never taught an AP class, only remedial classes, and so my teaching barometer needed to be re-calibrated. I do find it ironic and limiting that “teaching to the test” (which some might argue is what is wrong in education today), is exactly what one is supposed to do for an AP class. I am literally supposed to have them practice essays and problems similar to those designed by the College Board. Is anything in life ever simple? Can’t there, just once, be a clear right and wrong? Oh, how I am tormented!

At the workshop, we took a field trip to the LA waste water treatment facility, an event that changed my life for the better. I had never been to such a facility before, and it is AMAZING. I highly recommend that you go, right now, to see what happens to your pee and poop after it leaves your house. It gets filtered, pressed, decontaminated, mixed with bacteria that make it safe again, dehydrated and placed on a truck, where it is shipped to cotton farms as fertilizer, or buried in huge piles to further its decomposition. Along the way, lots of gas is released that is then harnessed for power. What an operation!

Sewage pipes: old concrete ones were being replaced with new plastic ones.


Filtration step 1: this is where all of the “solids” get filtered out from the rest of the water. This is where tampons go (for the record, they should not be flushed down the toilet). One time they found parts of a horse in there.


That was just one of many banks doing the same thing...


I forget what happens here, but it was so well named...


This is water that is not clean enough to drink, but at least doesn’t have poop in it. (I imagine this is the stage where all water in Mexico stops. It looks clean, but absolutely is not, as I, unfortunately, found out this summer)


This is clean and desiccated poop (looks like charcoal)! It’s on a conveyor belt making its way to a truck that will take it far, far away (only to come back into our lives after it has been incorporated into whatever crop they’re using it on. Can’t wait to see you again, old poop molecules!).