Ripple Effect Challenge

Meet the Bee’s Green Team from Herndon, Virginia! They improved their local watershed by installing purple martin towers at their school and in the community. Purple martins play a vital role in improving the biodiversity of ecosystems around the world.

What can YOU do to improve your local watershed?

Saria from Colorado, USA improved her watershed by installing bat boxes in walking trails and natural areas across the city. These bat boxes will provide clean, safe homes for critically endangered little brown bats which play an important role in the local ecosystem.

What can you do to improve your watershed California?

These students from Manitoba, Canada are creating positive ripples in their community by making their favourite sport more sustainable!

What can YOU do to improve your local watershed?

Biodiversity is essential for a healthy watershed! With this knowledge, Simran, a student in Alberta, Canada, implemented a project to improve biodiversity at her local school.

The Caring for our Watersheds Ripple Effect Challenge is off to Manitoba next!

How many teens do you know who have created their own aquaponics system running entirely on solar energy? This California student is growing food and making a positive difference in his community. Check out how he did it here.

Through the Caring for our Watersheds Ripple Effect Challenge, Hank challenges students in Ohio!

How much garbage can you fit inside a canoe without it sinking?
More than you might think! Check out these students in Manitoba who are determined to clean up the Sturgeon Creek and have a fun day on the water!

California!! Are you up for a Ripple Effect Challenge??

How many plastic water bottles do you throw out in a year? Emily Jackson from Alberta is making a difference in her school, one bottle at a time.

The Caring for our Watersheds Ripple Effect Challenge is off to Manitoba next!

Kaylee and Rebecca are Calgary, Alberta students, and they are improving their local watershed by providing free mulch to their community. Using mulch benefits gardens while also conserving water and decreasing the use of pesticides and herbicides.

California, you’ve been challenged!

Haylee and Emelie from Greeley, Colorado took up the challenge to improve their watershed. They built a rain garden at their school because it helps decrease pollution from run-off and keeps sediment out of their water system.

What can you do to create a positive impact on your watershed Saskatchewan?

Say hi to Julia and Jasmine from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan! These girls took action in their watershed by creating Squeaky Green, an organic and Triclosan free bathroom products to reduce the levels of Triclosan in the watershed. They also offer a wonderful recipe book that teaches students the problems with Triclosan and how to make their own Squeaky Green!

Download the Squeaky Green Recipe Book

What can you do to improve your watershed Colorado?

Did you know that excessive use of pesticides can have harmful affects on your watershed? Erin from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, realized this took the challenge to improve her local watershed. She improved her watershed by creating bat boxes to lessen the bug population and to educate students about the watershed and bats within it.

What can you do to improve your watershed Alberta?

Meet Mia and Brooklyn from Ponoka, Alberta, improved their local watershed by putting up bird boxes in two of their local golf courses. The bird boxes will help attract more birds, who will help keep the insect population in check. With less insects, the golf courses won’t have to use as many pesticides, keeping them out of their watershed!

What can you do to improve your watershed Colorado?

Ana from Greeley, Colorado, improved her watershed by putting up bat boxes in her area. These bat boxes will give bats a safe place to stay. The bats will reduce the amount of insects in the area naturally, rather than having to rely on pesticides, which can make their way into the local watershed.

What can you do to improve your watershed Manitoba?

This Manitoba student is improving her watershed one fingernail at a time. Virginia, are you up to the Ripple Effect Challenge?

FIELD WORK

2015, CINCINNATI, OH, UNITED STATES
Field Work Image
Students from The Summit Country Day School took on a nice-sized project last year. With the help of their mentor, Sue Metheney, and their teacher Kat Roedig, they partnered with the Children’s Home of Cincinnati located on Madison Road to plant a meadow area with native plants. Summit students, Ellie Schwietering, Adelaide Tsueda, and Jenny Zhang first proposed creating a more eco-friendly plant area to improve the watershed quality. They first envisioned completely eliminating a lawn and replacing it with native trees or fruit and vegetable gardens. After teaming up with the Children’s Home they modified their idea and decided to plant a meadow, which is both aesthetically pleasing and more efficient in capturing storm water than turf grass. The meadow area will help to filter rainwater, slow runoff and attract native animals and insects to the site. It will also reduce maintenance time and costs for the Children’s Home, a win-win for everyone.

The mission of the Children’s Home is to transform the lives of vulnerable children through individualized treatment and education services that build the skills and confidence to succeed in life. Their programs help children overcome social, behavioral and learning challenges every year. Ellie, Adelaide, and Jenny worked with Tim Daugherty, the Facilities and Landscape Manager and several students and teachers at the Children’s Home to plant the meadow area. All of the students worked together to help transform an area on their campus to become a much more beautiful space.

“We’re happy that we got to work with the Children’s Home to finish our project and we are excited to see the meadow in full bloom this summer” said Jenny Zhang. It was such a beautiful day to plant and everyone enjoyed working together and helping to improve their watershed.

TREE WELLS TO PROTECT TREES

2015, CINCINNATI, OH, UNITED STATES
TREE WELLS TO PROTECT TREES-1

There is a hillside on the east side of Withrow High School’s campus, just above the parking lot that has had several trees struggling to grow. This hillside had many erosion problems in the past and one student decided enough was enough. Chadwick George was close to graduation, but wanted to improve his school before leaving for college. Chadwick proposed to build very small retaining walls on the slope below each tree. These walls, which he called tree wells, would help to slow the rainwater and runoff from above so that it can more naturally soak into the ground and help the trees grow.

After placing third at the Caring For Our Watersheds final competition, Chadwick worked with his teacher, Jody McOsker, over the summer to level out and place tree wells on over 20 trees on the hillside. This project has certainly helped to not only improve water quality and runoff at Withrow High School, but Chadwick has completed his mission of improving his alma mater and leaving a great legacy.

Tree Wells to Protect Trees

RAIN BARREL IMPLEMENTATION

2015, CINCINNATI, OH, UNITED STATES
RAIN BARREL IMPLEMENTATION
Every year, the lower Mill Creek overflows by several billion gallons due to trash, oil, debris, and other harmful substances, resulting in the Metropolitan Sewer District to require a solution. Aleeyah Nurredin of Mount Notre Dame High School heard about the push to reduce overflow by two billion gallons by the end of 2016, and thought of a potential solution in rain barrels. The barrels would be transported around Cincinnati schools for competitions in rain barrel design, ultimately going home to collect water in the neighborhoods to benefit the community.

Since Stormwater can be used to water plants, collection in rain barrels would divert from the Mill Creek and prevent overflow. Aleeyah held an event in Amberley Village where individuals could collect their own rain barrel. Then, a competition was held where younger children could decorate their barrel to demonstrate their love for the environment. By raising awareness and promoting the reuse of storm water, Amberley Village is on the track to continue to improve the wellbeing of the Mill Creek!

Garden Bed/ Compost Demo Project

2015 Sacramento, California, USA

When planning their Caring for Our Watersheds proposal, Micaela Negrete, Avery Kelly, and Sebastian Simmons wanted to build upon and strengthen student engagement in some of the existing resources at the school. While there was vermicomposting bin at their high school, The MET Sacramento, they knew a lot of incoming and existing students did not really understand what compost was and why creating and using compost was beneficial. They decided to build a portable garden bed that could be used for educational demonstrations.

They planted one side in regular soil and the other in soil amended with compost and recorded measurements of plant growth over a period of time. The Compost Instructions group then planned and delivered a lesson to freshman at school on the benefits of compost, utilizing their demo garden bed and preliminary results from their own experiment.

The group hopes to give a similar lesson to a local preschool, in which they would incorporate an age appropriate coloring book and have students plant small vegetable starts. Caring for Our Watersheds project funds helped the group buy supplies to build the demonstration garden bed and materials for their lesson.

Reusable Water Bottles

2015 Sacramento, California, USA

Justin Yu and Kieran Garcia from The MET Sacramento were concerned with excessive plastic water bottle use by the student body at their school. They recognized that even know these bottles are recyclable, that many end up in the trash and thus landfill—or even littered around school and the community. They also learned that some of the water used in plastic bottles was not necessarily from sustainable water sources or, in some cases, not different from tap water. They wanted to provide students with an easy alternative to plastic bottle use by providing reusable bottles to their classmates, and by delivering a PSA-like presentation to classes to encourage daily use.

With the help of Caring for Our Watersheds project funds, Justin and Kieran purchased reusable bottles and prepared a presentation for their classmates on the negative effects plastic water bottles have on the environment, the benefits of reusable bottles, and other simple ways to practice sustainability in one’s daily life. They were able to distribute the bottles to their advisory class as well as raffle them off to other students that attended their presentation.

Landscape for Water Conservation

2015 Sacramento, California, USA

Colusa High School Students Gabriel Garcia and Jennifer Pulido identified an area of their campus that was in need of improvement. It was a large area of bare ground that, in the event of a storm, would become a source of excess sediment due to surface runoff from the school. It was also a highly visible spot that would make an excellent gathering place for students during lunch or outdoor learning opportunities.

Their idea was to implement a landscaping project in this area with native, drought tolerant species. Their project would demonstrate the use of native species that require less watering, and do not need fertilizers and pesticides, thus addressing issues of water quantity and quality.
They hoped to beautify their campus, reduce sediment delivery, and create habitat, but also to inspire other members of their community to landscape with water conservation in mind as well.

After Gabriel and Jennifer took 6^th place in the Caring for Our Watersheds Final Competition, they wanted to make their idea come to life. With the help of the students of their school’s Environmental Science Academy, their project was accomplished. With the help of Caring for Our Watersheds project funds, high traffic areas of the site were covered with fabric and gravel, landscape beds were built around the perimeter, drip irrigation installed, and native species planted.

Tree Planting at Pony Express Elementary School

2015 Sacramento, California, USA

The MET Sacramento students Allison Goi, Mianna Muscat, and Justin Yu wanted to improve their watershed, while also providing a needed service to an elementary school is their area. As they reached out to local elementary schools, they found that Pony Express Elementary had formal plans to create a Nature Area, which would both provide habitat for birds, insects, and small mammals, as well as serve as an outdoor learning space for the students. To support and start the first phase of the project, Allison, Mianna, and Justin planted four different native species of trees in the designated area on campus. Caring for Our Watersheds project funds allowed them to purchase the trees and tools necessary for the work. As they planted while school was in session, they were able to interact with and answer questions from the elementary students and staff about the tree species and the benefit they will provide the campus and watershed. The were happy to be able to enhance their community in this way and kick-off a great project at a nearby school.

Bee Boxes

2015 Sacramento, California, USA

As Noah Crockette, Jack Gumbiner, William Neves, and Jacob Reynolds, students at the MET Sacramento High School, researched environmental issues in the agricultural landscape surrounding Sacramento, they became concerned with the threats pollinators were facing. In many places, pollinators, and their essential service of pollination, are at risk from habitat loss, pesticide use, and introduced diseases. They also found that since the 1990’s, bee biologists started to notice a decline in the abundance and distribution of several wild bumblebee species. These students decided to focus their efforts on bumblebee conservation by creating habitat for this particular species group. With Caring for Our Watersheds project funds, they were able to build four bumblebee boxes and install them on a farm located near Dry Creek in the Sacramento River Watershed.

Native Pollinator Project – Plantings and Information Kiosk

2015 Auburn, California, USA

Antelope High School student Emma Forester partnered with Placer Land Trust to complete a project focused on increasing habitat for native pollinators. As Emma researched pollinators and the essential service they provide to agriculture and natural vegetation, she learned of issues and threats to their survival from habitat loss, pesticide use, and introduced diseases. She decided she could help by planting native species to increase pollinator habitat and with the help of Placer Land Trust, found a perfect location at Auburn School Park, adjacent to a community garden. By providing nectar sources to forage in, she would encourage bees and other pollinators to help pollinate the plants in the community garden. Her plantings would also help stabilize the slope next to the garden that was weedy and prone to erosion.

After clearing the weeds and prepping the area, Emma planted several pounds native flowering plant seeds. As she returned the following season, she saw that “the flowers bloomed beautifully and there were tons of little black bumble bees that are buzzing around!” After the initial seed planting, Caring for Our Watersheds project funds allowed Emma and volunteers to terrace
another slope and plant small shrubs and forbs there. Emma, with her dad’s help, built a kiosk to hold information about her pollinator project and other garden information. She also built a bee box for native burrowing bees like carpenter bees and bumble bees that will be mounted in a far corner of the garden where it won’t be disturbed.

As an extension to her project, Emma is working on both an educational pamphlet for the garden and a short awareness video that can be used by Placer Land Trust in their educational tours.