USA

Bio Retention Cell

2019, Fairfax, VA, USA

Students: Lauren Dick-Peddie, Elder Hernandez, Nathaniel Kirk-Popham, Maya Littman, Myles Jones

What if there was a way to filter water of sediments and chemicals when it goes into the ground? We see that a bio- retention cell is beneficial for maintaining and improving our watershed health. In order to help, we would like to revitalize the bio-retention cell at our school. A bio-retention cell is a rain garden with a rock pit before it, which acts as barrier to collect sediment while also stopping runoff and providing water to plants. Our bio-retention cell, needs maintenance, with planting of new native species and adding rocks too. One of the results we hope to achieve is to filter out nitrites, sediment, and garbage before it reaches Virginia’s rivers and the Chesapeake Bay.

When repurposing the bio-retention cell we made it our goal to involve more people than just us alone. We have over a thousand students, who can get involved through volunteering with the after school eco-club. We can reach out to this audience by advertising and promoting eco-club, emphasizing on the incentive to get involved. We will organize community service days to engage the wider community and volunteers.

Bio Retention Cell project Not only do we want this project to benefit Lanier but we wish to expand this wonder all across the county. We believe that all schools should have the chance to experience and help care for our watershed. We will invite students from our feeder elementary school and volunteer form our high school as well. After all, the Chesapeake Bay is something shared of six states and we should, and will, treasure it!

The bio-retention cell has many environmental benefits. It is able to take in a lot of water which helps it filter out a big amount of sediment that comes from runoff water. Since there will be a layer of rocks to prevent any litter from coming through the runoff, water pollution will be reduced. With our cell and hopefully more to come, not only does it reduce the amount of trash getting into our bay, but it also reduces other pollutants such as road salt, sediment and animal feces.

Standing for Tomorrow

2019, Alexandria, Virginia, USA

Standing for tomorrow Chesapeake Bay

The presence of mold in educational facilities is a major threat to everyone who works or studies in these facilities. Using our data we add to the growing body of evidence of climate change. This evidence provides another opportunity to publicly demonstrate how youth are affected by this crisis. Using our voice as youth in order to impact a greater cause that not only affects one as an individual but the person’s friends and future students at the school allowed a personal side to a much larger issue. Supporting change through legal policy with scientific evidence learned in class as well as researched using skills studied in the Earth Force process empowered students scientifically and allowed for their growth.

The overall solution will be to work with local politicians to create a policy that protects students from the mold in public schools. This policy will force school boards to overhaul rules concerning mold in schools. The policy will also help to protect Alexandria’s art-deco style school buildings from rotting and deteriorating from the inside out.

Bird Boxes and Benches

2019, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

The Green Club at Ridgley Middle School wanted to build bird boxes and benches to add to a glen area in the school. The students that are involved are Annabelle and Helia. Right now, the glen area is completely unused, not very appealing, and not doing well in terms of health. The students’ goal is to make the glen area alive and healthy again.

Bird boxes student action Chesapeake Bay

Adding bird boxes and benches will benefit this project in many ways. Benches will motivate students, teachers, and other people who come to the school, to go outside and enjoy nature, as they can sit down and take in what they see. People will be more motivated to use the area and want to help make it livelier and more enjoyable, if it is maintained. Making the bird boxes will bring more life and aspects of nature to the school. The bird boxes will bring new plants and animals and will be doing something that improves aspects of nature. One could be air quality. When plants go through photosynthesis, they remove carbon dioxide and return oxygen to the air. That is obviously very beneficial to everyone! Plants also remove other intoxicants like formaldehyde, benzene, and carbon monoxide from air, soil, and water (Environmental Health Perspectives). Currently, there are many toxins in the air, so the final project will do well in removing them.

Bird boxes student action Chesapeake Bay

In conclusion, creating bird boxes and benches to put in the glen area, will benefit the school in so many ways. It will bring in more nature, add color, improve the glen area’s health, and make use of a large space, that currently has no use. The students believe that renovating this area of the school, will promote/ benefit the community in various ways.

Sort to Save

2018-2019, Arlington, Virginia, USA

Sophia, Sarah, Angelique, Mayli, Harry, Kevin, Will, Helonna, Anyie, Ivan, Bryant, Tikarra, Alexis, Siya, Hailey, Billy, and Maggie noticed how many items that should have been recycled after lunch were ending up in the trash, and how much trash spoiled what had been placed in the recycling bin. They decided that the solution was a better sorting system for trash and recycling in their school cafeteria.

They proposed to change the current way they throw out trash and save recycling in their cafeteria. In their improved system they will have different bins for different lunch items. When all the paper and plastic are recycled, their system will keep them out of the landfills and water below the landfills. They will also be saving custodians time and work.

First they will have a separate bin for trash, food, dirty napkins, and plastic packets.
Then students will pour out milk or juice into a separate bucket. The way students do it now, the milk and food make the trays and cartons gross so that they cannot be recycled.
Then, the straws from the milk cartons will be put in a plastic recycling bin.
Plastic containers will also go into the plastic bin.
Next students will throw their empty milk cartons into a separate bin with other paper.
Once the cardboard trays are empty any food left on the tray can be scraped into the trash bin.
Finally, cleaned cardboard trays will be stacked on racks instead of trays being thrown in the trash. Without this, custodians have to take out the trays from the trash with their hands, and put it in another trash bag.

The school principal has approved this change, and students are working out the details with the custodial staff. Having separate trash racks, bins, and buckets will help a lot. The result will be less plastic in the watershed and more recyclable materials kept clean enough to make recycling easier for everyone.

WATERSHED BIOLOGY FIELD TRIP

Watershed Biology Trip Group

2018, Sacramento, California, USA

Evelin Pelayo knew that if her fellow students were to become stewards of the watershed, they first needed to engage directly with it through hands-on study of our natural resources. Without this direct experience, she felt it would be more difficult for her classmates to feel connected to the natural world and make choices to protect it. Therefore, Evelin wrote a proposal to fund a field trip to Donner Summit, where students would collect and analyze data under the guidance of Headwaters Institute staff.

Watershed Biology Trip 1

Each group studied a different aspect of Watershed Biology. For example, her group studied water depth and flow in relation to the number and species of invertebrates, while another sampled vegetation at various distances from water to compare.

Evelin’s Caring for Our Watersheds proposal and funding from Nutrien helped more of her classmates have this unique experience, in which they learned about scientific data collection techniques, the interaction of biotic and abiotic factors, the local environment, and each other on a whole new level.

Putah Creek Clean-Up

2018, Sacramento/Davis, California, USA

While Simon Downes-Toney goes to school at The MET Sacramento, he lives in the nearby town of Davis, California. Therefore, when choosing a location for his Caring for Our Watersheds project, he chose a place near and dear to his home and heart, the banks of Putah Creek.

Putah Creek flows through the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, where many students and residents utilize a paved path along the waterway. Simon organized a clean-up day, where he and his fellow classmates walked this riparian corridor and collected trash and debris.

This simple, straightforward project helped keep trash from entering the waterway, protected wildlife and waterfowl that reside there, and cleaned and beautified a public space enjoyed by many in the community.

A VERTICAL GARDEN DEMO

2018, Sacramento, California, USA

Vertical Garden Demonstration

As Ella Mills and Ava Siemering of George Washington Carver High School shared an interest in horticulture, they knew they wanted to grow plants as part of their Caring for Our Watersheds project.

After doing some research, they learned about vertical gardens and how they can allow people to utilize the space available in urban environments more efficiently and economically. In addition, they can help improve air quality in congested areas, as well as provide food, aesthetic value, and energy savings. They decided that they wanted to experiment with different designs for these gardens using recycled, or reclaimed materials and create one as a demonstration for their garden class at school.

This process led them to create a small vertical garden which demonstrated how to place plants with higher water requirements on top and plants that need less water below. The lower plants can survive on what drips out of the holes from the ones watered on top. They presented their hands-on experiment in water conservation and horticulture to the students in the garden club and talked about the benefits of vertical gardening.

Campus Mural and Garden

2018, Sacramento, California, USA

Jesha Morgan, Jackson Mossman, Emma Lotter, and Dominic Wing, students at George Washington Carver School of Arts and Sciences, combined their passions for art and gardening in their Caring for Our Watersheds project.

Campus Mural

In an effort to communicate an environmental message, beautify their campus, and demonstrate water-wise planting, this group completed a project that included painting a large water- and nature-themed mural and planting a small California native species garden in an adjacent area. They hope to awaken a sense of environmental consciousness in the student body as they see and interact with the art and garden.

PERMEABLE PAVERS IMPLEMENTATION

2018, CINCINNATI, OH, UNITED STATES
Pavers
At Walnut Hills High School, thousands of students walk across campus seven hours a day, 5 days a week. Because of this, during rainy conditions, it is very common to find soil and litter running into sidewalks and parking lots and clogging drains in multiple locations. To address the ongoing erosion issue, a project was proposed to use permeable pavers to limit erosion, sustain plant life, and lessen water runoff that leads to pollution. Patrick Carroll and Spencer Jones selected to implement permeable pavers because they are a realistic and financially reasonable solution to the environmental problem of soil erosion and water runoff. They allow rain and melting snow to go into the ground, reducing runoff and lessening the amount of pollutants that go into sewers.

Since the project occurs on a Cincinnati Public School property, the team members met with the AP Environmental Science teacher, principal, and alumni director of Walnut Hills High school. The team made a formal presentation, discussing the negative environmental impacts of not using permeable pavers at Walnut Hills High School. With the funds in place and a positive impact on the school, the administrators indicated that the school was supportive, and the alumni department was positive about the project. However, the team was notified that the Cincinnati School Board would have to approve a project of this kind before implementation.. The team expects that Cincinnati Public School will approve the project and implementation will move forward in the near future. Patrick and Spencer are aware that they chose an ambitious project but believe it will make an important ecological impact at Walnut Hills High School. In addition, the completed project can encourage other schools to make similar changes to help the local watershed.
Pavers

WOMEN FOR THE WATERSHED

2018, CINCINNATI, OH, USA
Women for Watershed
Ashley Yeoman and Kassidi Puthoff designed the Women for the Watershed week at their high school, Mount Notre Dame. Their project was designed to educate young high school women about the local Ohio watersheds and to spread awareness about what they, in turn, can do to help protect them. Ashley and Kassidi designed a week-long awareness event, during which students learned about water cleanliness, water preservation, recycling, littering, the harmful impacts of plastic and other toxins, and many other environmental protection topics.

Each day of the week, Ashley and Kassidi had a different activity or environmental announcement for students during homeroom. To kick off Monday, students watched a short, engaging video about the watershed – what it is, how humans cause harm to it, and what steps can be taken to protect it. Then, on Wednesday, there was a school-wide competition, during which students applied the information from Monday’s video to complete a homeroom quiz, or “hodge podge”. Each girl in the winning homeroom received a S’well stainless steel water bottle. Ashley and Kassidi chose stainless steel water bottles due to their positive environmental impacts. In the United States, the average person drinks about 170 plastic water bottles per year. Multiply this number by 24 girls, and in one year, one MND homeroom is using over 4,000 plastic water bottles. If these girls continue using the water bottles in years to come, imagine the number of plastic bottles that will be prevented from harming the earth.

Ashley and Kassidi also had a recycling poster contest at school. There are several recycling bins in the school cafeteria, but no signage reminding and encouraging students to recycle. So, students could design and submit recycling posters into the contest. We will copy and laminate the winning design and hang these posters around the cafeteria to encourage and remind people to recycle their soda cans, water bottles, and other recyclable materials.