Monument to a River

The Blackstone River Monument is an interactive playground sculpture

that teaches and celebrates the history and ecology of a local river.

By Bruce Robert Dean

Conquering the challenge of travelling upstream, two boys lower locks into a river channel to raise the water level for their boats. A few feet away, many small hands are submerged in an estuary, pushing aside silt, picking out pebbles, and discovering what creatures live in the ocean bay. Another child is tracing a timeline of the region, from the first amoeba to the modern airplane. Pre-schoolers stare skyward at a passing cloud and then cheer as solar-powered fountain spray rises and starts the river flowing again.

Welcome to the interactive river sculpture located behind the early childhood center at the Uxbridge Public School in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Designed by local artists and built in 1994 with assistance of school and community volunteers, the Blackstone River Monument has become the focal point of our outdoor classroom, providing lessons in the cultural and natural history of our local river. The monument is a simulation and operational model of the nearby Blackstone River, and its canal is a living laboratory demonstrating principles of technology and science. Simulating the river's source, a vertical fountain of water "springs" from an upper basin and flows down a curved "riverbed" to an "estuary," represented by a lower basin. Imbedded in a steel-reinforced, concrete wall 28" high and 36" thick, the river meanders over twenty feet from fountain to estuary.

Along the riverbed are a number of features that demonstrate river and canal technology. Miniature boats navigate through a ladder of locks made of plexiglass squares which slip into aluminum slots to raise the water level. Near the upper basin is a mill dam where spinningwaterwheels show how power is generated and invite experimentation. Young children assemble waterwheels in class with pre-cut parts (styrofoam circles with milk carton paddles rotating on a dowel), while older kids measure, cut and test their own models. By varying the length and number of the paddles, and the materials they are made of, students learn how design affects the turning rate of the wheels. By pressing their fingers against the cement riverbed, they can observe that when the channel is narrowed the rate of flow increases and more potential energy is available to turn the wheels.

Sand and stones placed into the basins and the riverbed demonstrate the power of water to move soil, sand and gravel, helping students to understand how melting glaciers and spring floods create, carve and reshape riverbeds. Colourful freeform tiles on the riverbanks point out events and artifacts, and mosaics covering the top and sides of the monument show the natural and human history of the river. The images include animals and plants of the region and pictures of the ways in which people have used the river. A series of nine clay plaques around the sculpture summarize the history illustrated in the mosaics. One plaque explains:

For thousands of years, Native Americans fished, hunted, farmed, and gathered berries, nuts, and wild rice along the river. Then white settlers forced them away from their valley, and white peoples' factories and cities polluted the river. Now we are learning that people of all races can live here, and we are learning to make the river clean again.

Another reveals:

In the 1820s, people built the Blackstone Canal so boats could carry goods 45 miles between the inland city of Worcester and the ocean port of Providence. Canal locks lifted the canal boats to get past waterfalls and shallow places. Horses pulled the canal boats.

All around the top play surface is a poem, written in 2" blue ceramic tile letters, which tells the river's story:

Glaciers dug me, a million years ago! I drink from streams that drink from rain and snow. The Ocean drinks from me. Nipmuc people named me Pawtucket, a thousand years ago. I carried their canoes, I'll carry yours! I welcomed Reverend Blackstone. I powered Slater's mills two hundred years ago. I lifted boats to Worcester. My animals and plants need me! Please take good care of me!ö

On the sides of the monument a geologic timeline of terra cotta tiles in tessellating patterns resembles a series of petroglyphs, emphasizing the river's ancient significance to people who have lived along it. The underside is celestial, with planets, stars, and suns contrasting a black stained background. At the same time they are learning about canal technology and river history, the fountain at the river's spring gives children a chance to observe the workings of a more modern technology. The fountain is powered by an inexpensive solar pump and demonstrates photovoltaics in action. A 17" x 40" 50-watt photovoltaic panel is mounted atop an 18-foot aluminum pole, and children can turn a wheel to maneuver the panel toward or away from the sun. The solar pump circulates the 'river' from a 60-gallon drum buried underground, up to the fountain, downriver to the estuary, and back through a filter to the drum. Underground pipe laid from the school to the monument provides a back-up to the solar-powered recirculating system.

The creation of an interactive river monument is a project worth consideration at any school. It can help to instill appreciation of a local river's essential role in our lives, and just as important, it can become the focal point of learning about responsible stewardship of the watershed. The Blackstone River Monument has done just that in Uxbridge. While our solar-powered sculpture is one of a kind, and involved the work of professional artists, planning and creating a river monument need not be daunting or difficult. A relatively simple starting point is to create a mosaic mural for an outdoor play area or garden. Students can research their local river, sketch ideas, put them on an idea board and move them around into a workable sequence. Start with line drawings, then add color. A group outdoor mural on river history is rich with potential.

If a permanent structure is not feasible, a portable river exhibit for a school courtyard is easily created using a plastic playground slide or a commercially available water table and a pump. Place a bucket at the base of the slide and pump the water from the bucket back to the high end of slide or table (experiment with the incline). A series of funnels placed upside downwill create obstacles, and a solution of Softsoap TM, water and food colouring will make the water currents visible, enabling you to simulate ocean currents, aerodynamics, turbulence, convection, and coastal erosion with your set up. (Commercially available Kalliroscope Rheoscopic Fluid, Novostar Designs, Inc., #18006593197, produces similar striking visual images of currents taking place within a liquid).

The next level is to plan a permanent outdoor sculpture. Some pointers: get everyone in the community involved, including a landscape architect and a building contractor. Check out local colleges, science centres, and environmental groups for project partners. These people will have practical suggestions to shortcut many potential problems. Begin with a small scale project that promises a high probability of success, and design it in phases to ensure a sense of achievement in steps along the way. Emphasize that the project will be ongoing and will always need some degree of care. Write down who is responsible for what in a maintenance plan. Establish a maintenance fund before construction begins. Document the entire process with slides and video. Put up displays with pictures of the 'doers' in action. Get newspaper coverage. Keep all decision makers and funders aware of your progress and celebrate your accomplish with a dedication ceremony.

In our case, local environmental groups provided interesting facts and photographs of the river. The garden club provided information of regional flora. Local businesses gave us discounts on materials and donated their time to dig the foundation. Parents and students worked together to construct the form for pouring the foundation, and to set, grout and polish the tiles. A local pole and line company lifted the 18-foot-high aluminum pole into place to support the photovoltaic panel that powers the solar pump. A community metal worker engineered an aluminum frame and rotational support for the panel. The Blackstone Heritage Corridor Commission, part of the national parks services, sponsored the dedication ceremony and the rangers spoke of the importance of the monument as an interpretive site.

Once you have established working relationships and learned who you can count on for what, you will have developed a project team that can take on other projects. The play yard behind Uxbridge School has been a community project since 1982 and each year something new is added. We invite community artists to get involved and, since 1992, have partnered with a science museum. Last year a crafts center and the police department joined our initiative. With our Blackstone River Monument, we are well into our second decade of transforming the play ground into a place where interactive learning happens everywhere and environmental education is part of the culture.

To see pictures of the different river monument features from conception to completion, visit the River Page (takes a short while to download, but worth a visit).

Bruce Robert Dean teaches art at Uxbridge High School in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. The Blackstone River Monument was designed and created by artists Lance McKee and Bill Greenlaw. The project's web site is http://world.std.com/~brd/ and includes a teacher's guide to the river monument .