Alberta

Viral Music Video Campaign

2011 Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada

Scott Deshane was a finalist in the 2011 Caring for our Watersheds Contest. Avid singer/songwriter, Scott wanted to use his talents to promote people’s awareness of and care for the environment. Scott’s Watershed Song was written just for the CFW contest. This is what Scott had to say about it:

“Music has been proven to help not only raise awareness of certain topics, but also remind [people] to avoid making bad decisions. If a song is “stuck” in a person’s head, they will repeat the lyrics over and over to themselves, and this will subconsciously help them remember something. If a song were created with lyrics that could remind a person of the dangers of harming the environment and that song were to stay with the person, then they would avoid harming watersheds.”

“The lack of awareness of the environment is definitely the supreme issue” – Scott Deshane

Set to a series of photos of water, this song will inspire you to Care for your Watershed! (And you would never guess the artist is in High school!)

The video can be seen on the Battle River Watershed Alliance’s YouTube channel at: http://youtu.be/l-c1XFjLLF8

Planting Trees for Battle River

2011 Ponoka, Alberta, Canada

These smiling faces are those of Courtney and Rhyliegh from St. Augustine School in Ponoka. After doing research on the Battle River Watershed, they realized a very important factor in the water quality of their town and watershed was erosion. Their proposal was to plant trees along the Battle River to prevent shoreline erosion.

After winning 1st place in the Final Competition, they decided to turn their proposal into reality and implement a tree planting at a local park near their school in Ponoka.

With the support of the Ponoka Home Hardware and Trees Canada the girls received 30 trees of various sizes. The town of Ponoka also supported the girls by having staff and equipment on hand to dig holes and water the planted trees. Fellow students from St. Augustine took the afternoon to come help plant.

Courtney and Rhyleigh were very happy to help their town and watershed have better quality water, animal habitat and air quality. They look forward to visiting that park for many years in the future

Floating Classroom

2008 Strome, Alberta, Canada

Students from Strome Junior High wanted to get their classroom outside taking action for the Battle River. For their CFW Proposal they suggested having students at their school testing water quality to answer the question “How Healthy is the Battle River?”

After winning in the 2008 Central Alberta CFW contest, they decided to implement their idea- a “Floating Classroom”. The purpose of their project was to keep track of the health of the river. The students tested the water in June and September to monitor water quality over the year as well as over many years. The students liked the idea because “the students are active in the process and can understand what is happening by their own hands-on experiences.” As fluctuation occurs over the years they will be able to examine patterns or changes and chart what exactly is happening.

Their objectives were to get students involved in their watershed in an interesting and meaningful way, have fun with friends, see interesting things along the way, and do real science outside!

The students thought that the science data collected is important and they wanted their observations added to a data base that would, identify trends and changes in the health of the Battle River, and over time answer the question “How healthy is the Battle River?” They hoped that this information would create awareness, among students and community members and inform future projects while their students learned about ecosystem concepts, and enhanced their lab skills, and understanding of water quality analysis.

This project helped the environment by creating awareness, increasing student knowledge and understanding of the watershed, increasing their practical use of investigation skills and enabled them to participate in real science.