Anna Wallace can picture it -- kids in rubber boots and hip waders, splashing in the stream that runs behind the Hermitage elementary schools.

"I think most of them will think it's going to be fun because you can get muddy," said the Hermitage sixth-grader.

Of course, this is nothing new to Hermitage students who have taken water samples for testing and examined insects that live in the stream to measure water quality.

But the project Anna and other students will participate in this spring will be a little different. They will help with a stream restoration project funded by a $97,876 state grant.

The stream is an unnamed tributary of Pine Hollow Run. It was moved when the school buildings were put in and the school side of the stream is mostly grass, so there are few trees or bushes to hold soil in place, said Daniel P. Wallace, vice president of Wallace & Pancher Inc., the consulting firm working with the district on the project.

The stream is essentially straight, except for two sharp bends, and the water is ripping soil from the banks and floating it downstream, said Wallace, who is Anna's father.