Homewood Montessori School
Fall 1997 Homework
Visual arts Teacher-Mrs. Lucas
4th and 5th grade Teachers- Mrs. O'Brien and Ms. Layman
Research about Nine Mile Run
by Homewood Montessori School 4th and 5th grade students
October 22, 1997

What is (was) the steel industry in Pittsburgh?
What is slag?
What is Nine Mile Run?
What is one of the goals of the Nine Mile Run Project?
What is a watershed?

What is (was) the steel industry in Pittsburgh?
 



 
Iron started steel mills in Pittsburgh. Then the city became a very smoky city which found out it was causing health problems for our workers and people who lived in the city.
(4th grade)
Steel is a metal that is made out of raw material such as iron, and carbon. They took these raw materials and melted them. They took out things they didn't need, and the rest was steel. This process needed a lot of people, so that made a lot of jobs for people in the city. 
(4th grade) 
Pittsburgh got the name "Steel City" because so much steel was made here. The steel that was in Pittsburgh was sent over the world to build buildings and bridges and other things. Because so much steel was made in Pittsburgh they named the football team the "Steelers." Pittsburgh does not make very much steel now.
(5th grade)
They used to call Pittsburgh the Steel City because they made steel long ago. Iron and lime stone make steel when you cook them. During wars they made steel for guns and stuff. Many mills were not modern any more by the 1980s. Many of the steel businesses moved to a different city. 

Andrew Carnegie introduced the Bessemer process. It used: 
  1. iron ore from Lake Superior
  2. coal from nearby
  3. coke from coal
  4. pure air
(5th grade) 

 
Many people had to work seven days a week. Many of the jobs were very dangerous. River barges and railroad cars full of coal, limestone, and iron ore came into Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh steel workers worked many hours to make the steel used to build many things such as ships, tanks and planes. Pittsburgh was dark with dirt from the steel mills. On some days street lights had to be turned on because of the air pollution. New laws had to be made to stop air and river pollution. Pittsburgh was still making steel into the 1970s and 1980s. But by then, those old mills were no longer modern. It would have taken too much money to equip them with new machinery and rebuild the buildings.
(5th grade)
This recap calls for a blast furnace, a steelmaking furnace, ingot molds, ingot stripper, semi finishing mills, and finishing mills. 
  1. The raw material for steelmaking include huge quantities of iron ore, coal, and limestone.
  2. The blast furnace uses iron ore, coke(made from coal), and limestone to make pig iron.
  3. The steelmaking furnaces change the iron into steel.
  4. The steel is poured into molds to make ingots. The molds are stripped from the ingots, then the ingots are heated in a soaking pit until they are at an even temperature.
  5. Semi-finishing mills roll the huge steel ingots into smaller, more easily handled shapes called blooms, billets, and slabs.
  6. In the final process finishing mills change the blooms into wires, pipes, plates, and other things used by people to create parts of cars, ships, etc. 
(5th grade) 

There is much less steel industry in Pittsburgh now. Wheeling Pittsburgh is still making a lot of steel, though. Wheeling Pittsburgh is America's ninth largest steel producer. In 1995, the company produced 2.2 million tons of raw steel, shipped 25 million tons, and sales of the year totaled $1.4 billion. (internet) 
(5th grade) 

Steel is a hard and tough metal. It is made by treating iron with great heat and mixing carbon with it. People have known for a long time how to make steel, but it was always very expensive about 100 years ago. We learned how to make a lot of steel cheaply. That's when the steel making industry in Pittsburgh started. We had many steel mills in Pittsburgh. We sent steel products all over the world. Safety pins, scissors, tall buildings and automobiles are made out of steel. The air in Pittsburgh used to be very dirty because of the gas that came from the furnaces in the mills. We leaned how to clean up the air. Slag was dumped into river areas like Nine Mile Run in Pittsburgh. 
(4th grade) 

The steel industry used to be big in Pittsburgh, but now it barely exists. Lots of things are made of steel such as: cars, buildings, furniture, pots and pans, plumbing fixtures and many more things. Steel production causes water and air pollution. It also leaves a residue called slag. Here are some memories my grampa told me. About 50 years ago, men and women who worked in downtown had to change their shirt at about noon, because they were so dirty from the pollution. Also it was not unusual to turn on the headlights at 11:00 a.m. because the pollution made it dark. 
(5th grade) 

Pittsburgh Steel Company was founded in 1901 on the Monongahela River southeast of Pittsburgh. Our city was once called the Steel City. It was a very strong industry. Families had jobs and the city had a great deal of smog. My neighbor retired from the steel mill after 30 years. 
Chase Johnson (4th grade) 
My father worked at the Duqesne Works. 
He could feel the heat of the new ingots as they cooled. 
When he was a child, he could see the sky lit from the fires of the steel mill. 
Most of his friends knew that they could get a good job in the mill even without much education. 
(4th grade) 

What is slag?
 



Slag Heap


 





Slag is the momentary material in the process of making pig iron, and in smelting copper, lead, and other metals. The slag from steel blast furnaces contains sulfur and silicates of calcium, magnesium, and aluminum. The slag from copper and lead smelting furnaces contains iron, silicate, and oxides of other metals in small amounts.
(5th grade)

Slag is little rock-like things that contain: calcium, iron, aluminum, and magnesium silicate. (Encarta)
(5th grade)

Slag is the waste left after the melting of ores and the separation of the metal from them.
(4th grade)

A view of Rosemont


 





When you make steel you mix iron ore with lime stone and melt it. Then the ore goes to the bottom and the waste rock and lime stone goes to the top and makes slag. Then they throw the slag in a big pile.
(5th grade)

Slag is the residue left by the smelting of metallic ore. It doesn't hold water. Plants don't grow well in slag.
(5th grade)
Slag is the non-metal material removed from pig iron, lead and other metals. It is sometimes used in building roads.
(4th grade)

Slag looks like a rock with holes in it. It feels bumpy. Slag was what was left after the fire in the steel furnace burned the holes in it. The steel companies didn't know how to recycle the slag so they just dumped it where Nine Mile Run is.
(5th grade)

People think slag are rocks, but they are really not. It is the left over materials when making steel.
(4th grade)


There are two bottles. One is full of soil, and another full of slag.
Both bottles have holes in the bottom. Slag is much heavier than soil.
Water is poured in each. Water seeps through the slag much faster than the soil.

What is Nine Mile Run?
 



 





Nine Mile Run is a stream off the Monongahela River.
(5th grade)

It is a valley located between Squirrel Hill and Swissvale. It is damaged by slag dumped there over 50 years.
(4th grade)

Nine Mile Run is near where we live. Nine Mile Run used to be a creek just above the Monongahela River. Now it is a polluted stream that runs between two mountains of slag. The Mayor and some other people want to dig away the slag and build houses and parks. Other people think it is too dangerous to dig away the slag because the dust can hurt your lungs.
(5th grade)

Nine Mile Run is an area near the Monongahela River that was used by the steel mills for dumping for many years.
(4th grade)

Nine Mile Run is a river in Squirrel Hill that goes to the Monongahela River. It is also a name for big piles of slag near there.
(5th grade)

Nine Mile Run is a historic stream and valley identified by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. in 1910 for its beauty as well as its waste water problems. By 1923 the valley was selected by influential Pittsburgers for a city park, but was subsequently purchased by a slag disposal firm. Between 1922 and 1970 it was used as a dumping ground for industrial slag from Pittsburgh area steel mills.
(4th grade)


Nine Mile Run has a CSO program (Combined Sewer Overflow)

What is one of the goals of the Nine Mile Run Project?


 





One of the goals of Nine Mile Run is to restore the environment.
(4th grade)

To grow plants on the slag.
(5th grade)




One of the goals of the Nine Mile Run Project is to find a way to grow plants in the slag.
(5th grade)

What is a watershed?

Watershed is a dividing (as a mountain range) separating one drainage area from others, the whole area that drains into a lake or river.
(5th grade)