Project Clear’s 2012 participants have been selected to represent Bethel High School and commit their time to researching the ecosystem of Candlewood Lake.

Mrs. Sharon Bly, a chemistry teacher at BHS since 1984, leads the students with this program. BHS joined Project Clear in 2003 to work alongside students from New Fairfield High School, New Milford High School, Brookfield High School and Danbury High School.

Mrs. Bly said, “The main objective of Project Clear is for students to understand environmental impact.” This year, Bethel High School’s students are assigned to work with New Fairfield High School to observe and collect data about the lake and its surrounding area.

“We were organizing the data and keeping it for ourselves, but now the state is close to Project Clear because they use the data for records,” Mrs. Bly explained. The data such as the acidity of the lake to the organisms that dwell near the lake is submitted to EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).

Project Clear students are rewarded for their dedication with thirty hours of community service. Plus, it is an extra curricular activity that will surely impress colleges on applications, and students like that they are helping the state of Connecticut.

“What we do is not simply an experiment for fun,” concludes Mrs. Bly. “We research and conduct ourselves like scientists because we want to know what goes on even at a microscopic level.”