On a sunny day, two identically shaped ponds gleam invitingly in the central courtyard of Cumberland High School. Each water garden has a small, raised basin from which water burbles and splashes while coursing along a 15-foot stream bed of rocks into a large pool at ground level.

On the day of my visit last spring, each pond also had its own swarm of chemistry students taking water samples and recording data on the weather, air and water temperatures and the state of some large goldfish. Actually, the ponds are not quite identical. One serves as the experiment in which each element of the microecology is first carefully introduced -- the bio-filters, fish, plants, chemicals -- so it can be compared with the control pond, which lacks that element. At the end of each spring or fall season, with that quarter's data already in hand, the class adds the new, experimental element -- fish, say -- to the control pond, equalizing the features of both. The next class will come along and introduce yet another new element to the experimental pond, allowing the studies to begin again.

With the class period winding down, a few teachers with bag lunches drift out to the courtyard benches for a break in the open air. Even with the swarm of chatting water-samplers, the courtyard's Zen calm contrasts sharply with the typical hurry, hassle and noisy activity of the school's building itself.

Mind you, as of 2002, this same courtyard was merely a light well for the 1960s-era building, whose interior classrooms wrap around this 70-by-80-foot plot of land. Weeds and neglect had long ago overwhelmed any landscaping that had once been there.

Howard Lancaster, the kids' chemistry teacher, had been eyeing the spot as a place where he might combine his love of water gardens with a hands-on project for his students. He reminded me that local and state standards require field experience for high school science students, also called "authentic research." The "field" can be anywhere that nature and weather make gathering data more complicated than in a lab.

Generally, science teachers must remove their students from the purely institutional environments of most schools to satisfy such requirements, with the attendant headaches of organizing kids' release from their other classes.

Commendably, Cumberland High School requires all students to complete 15 hours of faculty-supervised community service. While some kids tackle a project of their own design, others merely grouse about having yet one more hoop to jump through to get their diploma. Lancaster correctly figured that plenty of grousing students hadn't yet faced this obligation, and might want to do so by digging a pond.

In the fall of 2002, Lancaster invited his classes to an after-school meeting in the library, where they could find out more about the project from a pond expert, Craig Marciniak, proprietor of Tranquil Water Gardens, a shop and landscaping service.

Marciniak had been wanting to get involved with just such a project because the water-gardening industry promotes a community service initiative called "Ponds for Kids."

Marciniak says, "I went to the library with a lot of literature on ponds for anyone interested. The first thing I did was ask them: What's a pond? What's a water garden?

"Not one of them knew. They thought maybe I was talking about one of those big plastic tubs with some sort of waterfall that you buy at the big home-building stores. Then I showed them a whole bunch of pictures of water gardens and talked about what they could be. I tell you, you could hear a pin drop. At the end of that day, the kids were ready to walk right out of there and build a pond."

Kristen Girard, Class of 2005, now at Fairfield University, stepped forward to be a leader for the initial phase of the project. "I hadn't given any thought to how I'd fulfill the 15 hours of community service. So Adriane Reid and I took on the job of being student co-leaders. The first thing we did was organize ourselves into groups with each one in charge of some fundraiser. We did a bake sale, car wash, yard sale. We sold engraved bricks that would go into the walkways. When I was done, I had, like, 30 hours or more. I was so excited about it, I went and talked to the freshmen about how cool my experience with community service was."

The two 1,100-gallon ponds cost $6,000 for bio-filters, rubber liners, gravel, sand and so forth. The students raised $8,000, which left a little cash reserve for ongoing maintenance, such as fighting algae blooms.

Over the course of two Saturdays, roughly 60 students came to the school, cleared the site and dug these two substantial earthworks. Marciniak says, "They had really hard digging conditions, packed clay and lots of rocks. Then we dumped 24,000 pounds of stones out in the parking lot -- that's twelve tons -- and the kids wheelbarrowed them to the site. We used the excess dirt to build up the waterfalls. It was a blast. Everyone had a lot of fun."

Lancaster says, "The ponds were originally for the science classes, but now art students come out and draw them. People like having lunch out here. We have another group working on making the courtyard a wildlife habitat. Students are researching what plants they'll need to encourage insects that support local wildlife.

"We got a grant from the Rhode Island Wild Plant Society to help with the work.

"But, what's really powerful is having the kids do something for their own community."

Kristen says, "Those ponds are our mark on Cumberland High School. I fully intend to go back and visit them and know that I helped build them. That was one of the best things I did in high school."

Rarely do public high schools create learning opportunities that teach students to connect to nature or to their own communities. Predictably, some Cumberland High School students complain about "involuntary servitude," but so what? Every kid, from every background, ought to learn about the community supporting him or her by investing time and energy back into it. Moreover, as everyone involved in this project crowed, it feels good to get together with a bunch of people and make something better, or bring into reality what was only a wish. It's a great life lesson that, hopefully, these students will remember and repeat.

Tranquil Garden's Marciniak is available to schools as a partner on a Ponds for Kids project. His number is (401) 658-4547.

Julia Steiny is a former member of the Providence School Board; she now consults and writes for a number of education, government and private enterprises. She welcomes your questions and comments on education. She can be reached by e-mail at juliasteiny@cox.net or c/o EdWatch, Education and Employment, The Providence Journal, 75 Fountain St., Providence, R.I. 02902.