The Hummingbird in Action

student hummingbird implementation

2018 Tres Sargentos, Carmen de Areco, Buenos Aires, Argentina

EES N°3, Tres Sargentos Carmen de Areco. Students: Marcos, Solange, Brisa, Paula (with the participation of all the classroom during implementation)

The aim of this project is to continue with last year’s project “My friend the hummingbird”. That project’s objective was to re-forest the town of “Tres Sargentos” with native trees and bushes, to encourage the presence of birds, specially the hummingbird.

planting a garden

The first step taken was to build a greenhouse in school premises where students planted 1000 seeds of which only 50 plants grew. So, in this second stage, the students of this project worked on mistakes made last year and as a result, they produced more plants.

They finished the year participating in a market where they exchanged plants and it was open to the entire community. The project ended with the plantation of the trees grown at school and other plants and flowers donated by different gardens and people of the town around a large poster made of mosaics at the entrance of the town.

student action group photo hummingbird mural

* Some Plants were donated by: Fundación Senderos del monte, Reserva de Gualeguaychu, Vivero de la reserva de Ribera Norte de San Isidro, Vivero de Chicos Naturalistas and Basanta family, Pablo Peliasco, Mauro Fossati and Rodriguez family.

Watershed Art Mural

2018, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Rebecca Knapp, a student from Miles Macdonell Collegiate, wanted to educate her fellow students about the damage that improperly disposed waste can have on our watersheds. She came up with idea to turn trash into art to get her message across. This mural and plaque have been put up in her school to remind everyone who sees it to help keep their watershed free of garbage and plastic.

watershed art mural

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.

GOT SOLE?

2018, CINCINNATI, OH, USA
Got Sole
Paige and Aliyah carried out their project within Mount Notre Dame High School. They decided to hold a used tennis-shoe drive and work together with Nike’s Reuse-A-Shoe Program to help create new playgrounds for kids around the community. With the help of their mentor, they created several posters advertising the details of the shoe drive and hung them up around school. In addition, they also sent out and electronic school-wide post and made an announcement during the school day. They used Chick-fil-A meals as an incentive to get people to participate. Anyone who brought in three or more pairs of tennis shoes was rewarded with a meal of their choice.

The shoe drive immediately got a lot of buzz from the students. With awards like Chick-fil-A and points towards a potential day off school, the girls had no trouble getting people to participate. After only the first day, the juniors had collectively brought in over 30 pairs of shoes and were winning the competition. By the end of the drive, the seniors ended up getting the win with 56 total pairs of shoes.

At the end of each day, Paige and Aliyah counted up the shoes in the bins, recorded the amount, and loaded the shoes into Aliyah’s car. Once her trunk was full, she made a trip down to the Rookwood Nike store and dropped off all the shoes. The employees there were super nice and grateful for all the hard work Paige and Aliyah did. They got so many pairs of shoes, they ended up having to take two trips to the Nike store!

HELPING THE LOCAL ROSELAWN COMMUNITY

2018, CINCINNATI, OH, UNITED STATES

Maegan, Annah, and Lydia took action to help their local watershed by catching rainwater and creating a drip irrigation system that will nourish a garden. Their focus is to help the New Prospect Baptist Church in Roselawn, OH. Their plan is to help them utilize rainwater and turn it into a fresh garden for the people of the community. The drip irrigation system they put in place will accommodate five-100 ft beds and it will grow yummy fruits veggies to promote health and good environmental habits. They feel this is something they can do to extensively help the watershed and community.

On April 7 2018, the girls and their families and friends woke up early to go to the church to complete their project. With all the family and friends there were many volunteers that came and helped them. First, a videographer from the Watershed project asked the girls questions about the project. They filmed Annah and Lydia as they participated in the ripple challenge around the world. After filming, they laid out the hundreds of feet of tubing across the garden. They carefully poked holes spaced 3 feet apart. Finally, they inserted pipes for the water to flow so the crops could receive water. These steps are key to a successful drip irrigation system.

The purpose of this project is to use resources already available but not in its current form for the community. By building the drip irrigation system Annah, Lydia, and Maegan were able to save money on the water that would have had to be used to water the gardens at the Roselawn church. This is because the water is being supplied from rainfall and will be dispersed into the gardens on a timed system. They have high hopes that this new system will provide fresh foods to the people in Roselawn. This will have a long lasting impact on the community because of the food desert they live in. Going forward, the fresh fruits and vegetables grown through the use of the drip irrigation system will supplement the diets of those living in the area creating a healthier community.