Author Archives: Chloe Sprecker

Areco Tree Friends

2012 San Antonio de Areco, Buenos Aires, Argentina

These students created a club to promote awareness of the environmental benefits of trees in urban areas. They started by institutionalizing the “Club Areco Tree Friends” in their school. First they created a Facebook account where they gathered and shared information about the importance and the environmental functions of trees, including photographs and the good or bad conditions of the local trees. They also published information about environmental activities that are being held and other environmental news. By hanging posters with information and our logo, the students continue to create awareness at school, and the students invited their peers – and anyone else who is interested – to follow them on Facebook.

The students also used their social media platform to promote the photograph contest held by the students of San Antonio school.

Database of the Good Things

2012 San Antonio de Areco, Buenos Aires, Argentina

This project aims to raise awareness of actions that are beneficial to our watersheds and the environment. The project proposed the creation a geographic information system (GIS) which is viewable on the web, and illustrates beneficial actions that have been done in the Areco River. The display will be organized and linked to manuals with explanations. The proposal divides the actions into the following segments: agriculture, stockbreeding, industrial, schools/institutions and communities. Specialists of each segment will choose and add information to the database on environmentally friendly actions that benefit the San Antonio watersheds.

This will be one of the first databases with information of our watershed!

The Trees of Our Town

2012 San Antonio de Areco, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Students from N2 Ricardo Pannunzio Secondary School, with special orientation in arts, presented an awareness contest about the local trees.

In order to promote the need to become aware of environmental care, they suggested cultural activities and calendars to spread the word. They prepared a photograph competition with the theme “Local Trees”.

The contest was open to all students of San Antonio de Areco watershed schools. Each student could present up to three photos. More than 120 photos were presented. The 13 winning photographs were chosen by the Jury. These photos were used to create the 2013 calendar that was distributed in the local area (library, schools, museums, etc.)

These 13 winning photographs will be part of the 2013 exhibition of the Museum Las Lilas (in San Antonio de Areco) and, as it was proposed, they will also be displayed at nearby community exhibitions.

In order to broadcast their contest, this team worked side by side with another group of students that also won the CFW contest by creating a Facebook account.

Batty About the Big Brown Bat

2012 Arlington, Virginia, USA

Students at H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program wanted to restore Big Brown Bat habitat in Arlington, noting that bats play an important role in the watershed as pollinators, insect pests predators, and source of natural fertilizer.

Working with bat experts and the staff at Potomac Overlook Regional Park, they developed their own bat box design and built and installed them at the park, mostly using donated materials. They also invited an expert from the Save Lucy the Bat Campaign to lead a school assembly to raise awareness among students about the importance of protecting endangered bats.

Tree Planting Project

2012 Arlington, Virginia, USA

Sixth graders at Kenmore Middle School noticed that the impervious surfaces of the built urban environment – roads, buildings, etc – cause increased storm-water run-off that local streams, including Four Mile Run. They decided they should address the problem by planting more trees to intercept rainfall and reduce run-off. Coordinating with Arlington County’s Landscape Ecologist, they arranged to plant trees, provided by the county, in Bluemont Park near the school campus.

Motor Oil Recycling for the Community (MORC)

2012 Washington, DC, USA

Following on the Roots Public Charter School’s 2011 Caring for Our Watersheds effort and proposal entry, students of the MORC (Motor Oil Recycling for the Community) project worked to raise community awareness of where and how to recycle used motor oil. They determined the neighborhood locations for motor oil recycling, and produced signs to let the community know where those locations are.

At the school’s Family Fun Day on June 9, students hosted a MORC activity booth to inform people of the closest recycling location to their home (since they had found that not all service stations in the area recycle oil as they out). At the Caring for Our Watersheds finals on June 4, the MORC project won 1st place, with a spirited presentation that included a mock newscast.

Battery Waste Disposal

2012 Brighton, Ontario, Canada

Kevin Peterson, Grade 8 student at Brighton Public School identified improper disposal of batteries as Battery waste poses a large problem in landfills since large amounts of batteries are disposed improperly. The main problem with batteries in landfills is the chemicals such as lead, cobalt, cadmium, lithium and potassium hydroxide that get leaked into drinking water then consumed by humans. This then causes a large amount of medical conditions.

Kevin noted that, although there are battery recycling programs in place, a lack of advertisement as well as lack of drop off boxes remains a problem. His proposal was to display posters where batteries are sold to inform customers about the battery recycling programs. In addition drop off boxes for batteries are needed in more local businesses and community centers not just big box stores to help expand these programs into smaller communities.

After the Caring for our Watersheds contest Kevin presented his idea to Brighton Municipal Council. They were so impressed that they not only gave Kevin permission to locate a battery drop off box and poster in the municipal building, they also agreed to fund the cost of all the boxes and posters.

Project Penguin

2012 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Alana Krug-McLeod from Aden Bowman Collegiate in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, proposed the idea of developing an educational and entertaining program that will encourage individuals to understand and protect vital water sources – both locally and internationally. Project Penguin is set up to provide individuals new reasons to care about the environment and new ways to join others to make a difference. It is important to learn why everyone’s everyday actions matter and how to make changes that prevent harm and that will do good.

To undertake this informative program, Alana decided to set up a number of geo-caches. The materials contained within the geo-caches included sample cards and decorated “penguin” eggs. The cards and eggs were created with the assistance of the art club.

An educational DVD containing videos and information shorts was then created and distributed to schools.

GreenLemon

2012 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Kyle Cousins with the EcoJustice program at St. Edward School in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan developed a wonderful idea about how to help protect the watershed. Kyle’s idea was to create an environmentally-friendly and chemical-free all-purpose cleaner that would be simple enough for people to make in their own households. He chose to make a chemical free cleaner for his watersheds project because when you’re cleaning and you use a chemical-based cleaner and some of the cleaner goes down the drain, it will eventually end up polluting the watershed. However, if you use a chemical-free cleaner, then you don’t have to worry about chemical-based pollution coming from that cleaner. Greenlemon (lime) photo student action project

The benefits of using a homemade cleaner greatly outnumber the disadvantages. First off, it will save you money because cleaners at stores can be quite pricey, but when you make your own, the ingredients are much less expensive. Next, GreenLemon is environmentally friendly because without chemicals there is no chemical pollution. Another advantage to making your own cleaner is that you can use the same bottle over and over again, thus you will not need to get a new bottle every time. This will reduce the amount of plastic that either needs to be recycled or might find its way into the watershed or landfill. As well, since GreenLemon has no chemicals, it is safer for children and pets, as well as adults.

Kyle created a blog to help share his cleaning solution in addition to including the recipe at this school and his school newsletters.

GreenLemon Cleaning Solution- 4L Recipe 3L of Water, 3 cups Vinegar, 1/4 cups Baking Soda Add 15ml of Lemon Juice to every 1L of solution at time of use

Upgrading Restrooms in My School

2012 Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada

Dean Webber from Lord Selkirk Regional High school proposed to reduce water use at the school by installing water sensors in the washrooms.

“Using automatic taps decreases water usage by up to 1.7 liters per use. If less water is used by the school then less pollution will be emitted into the environment by cleaning and heating the water.”

The water taps have now been installed in the bathrooms at Lord Selkirk. The school has also purchased 4 more taps so that the main bathrooms all have water saving automatic taps. The Caring for Watersheds taps sponsored by Nutrien (at a cost of $1,200) started the ball rolling on the implementation of water saving devices within the washrooms in our school. “The students have been really respectful of these new taps and there have been several positive articles written about them in the school newspaper” states Angela Bajt, educator at the school.