"She thought about all the plants and animals that live in
streams. Not just the diatoms, but the whole community
of sponges and spiders, water lilies and worms, everything
from the tiniest protozoa to the biggest fish. She realized
that if she really wanted to understand pollution, she had
to listen to all of them. Not just one voice, but the whole
chorus of water dwellers.
No one had ever studied everything in a river before. It
would be a huge job.
Ruth jumped in feet first."
Readers are told immediately that Ruth Patrick loved pond scum when she five years old. She and her sister were encouraged by their father to find anything of interest while they were out walking in the woods. Ruth was a collector at heart, and had no trouble filling her basket.
Looking at the pond scum she had collected under her father's microscope, she was amazed to see gem-like shapes and other delicate and wondrous things. She would later learn that they were diatoms and their work was necessary to life on Earth. As a young child, Ruth wondered what else she might find in water. Although her mother had little patience for her daughter's love of hauling buckets of 'who knew what' home, her father encouraged her at every turn.
Girls, at that time, were not expected to study science. Ruth and her father had other ideas. Her interests led her to study biology at college and grad school, with a focus on diatoms. Tens of thousands of them, with very different survival skills. Learning that they had stories, Ruth was on her way to many remarkable discoveries, including wondering if diatoms could help solve the problem of water pollution.
Because of people like Ruth who asked pertinent questions and found answers wherever she could, the world knows far more that it once did. With the help of other interested scientific helpers, and by collecting as many samples as they possibly could, Ruth finally found her answers in the water they so carefully studied.
"Where there are many different kinds of animals, the water is healthy.
Where there are few - or none - it is polluted."
Her work lives on today as biodiversity, and it is used to measure pollution in many ecosystems. For sixty years, the young girl who loved pond scum worked tirelessly to educate others as she still sought to educate herself.
Back matter includes More About Ruth Patrick, a timeline, and a selected bibliography for those readers who want to learn more themselves ... just like Ruth.
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