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

Rain Gardens

2011 Fort Collins, CO, USA

The Environmental Club is proud to bring to Poudre High School’s campus a rain garden, also called bioremediation garden. A rain garden is a depression that catches rainwater runoff from hard surfaces such as parking lots and roof tops. The plants help improve absorption and filter the water as it soaks into the ground. It is a simple and effective way to reduce the pollution that travels in Stormwater and eventually ends up in our waterways, like the Poudre River. On the surface, a rain garden consists of various plants and grasses that are able to survive in both wet and dry environments. Other materials can be found in the garden as well, such as rocks, mulch, and soil. Here’s why it is useful: as runoff water and precipitation percolate through the rain garden, the plants and natural materials filter out and adsorb to pollutants. As a result, the water that leaving the garden is cleaner, and so are our rivers!

A huge thank you to Nutrien for donating $1,000 to implement this project.

Toilet Heroes

2011 Greeley, Colorado, USA

Alyson Foust, Jesse Freeman and Levi Trevino from Greeley Central High decided to become “toilet heroes” to help their school become more environmentally friendly.

Central high school contributes to the misuse of water. Approximately 1,500 students and staff use the restrooms each at the school. With each flush draining 3.5 gallons, about 5, 250 gallons are flushed each day. Each month students are in school – approximately 22 days each month – 115,500 gallons are flushed. 1,155,000 gallons are flushed each school year (10 months).

This implementation is able to have a large impact on the Cache la Poudre watershed. With the help of the Greeley Schools Facilities Department, who actually did the plumbing and the students’ mentor, Ruth Quade, who guided them through the rebate process with the City of the Greeley, the students’ replaced ALL the toilets in the school to low flow toilets.

This project was able to change 41 toilets in the school to water saving low-flow toilets. The newly installed toilets will act as a pilot to converting toilets into low flow toilets throughout the districts 30. This would have a dramatic, positive, impact on the local watershed of Cache la Poudre. The project was completed in August of 2011. The students are especially grateful to Nutrien for sponsoring the Caring for our Watershed contest in Colorado and the $1,000 used to implement our Toilet Heroes Project at Greeley Central High School.

“Our goal is to save water to further help sustain our watershed.” -Alyson Foust.

Caring for our Watershed Kits

2011 Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada

While most middle school students are worried about the present, Cassandra Schinkel is more concerned about the future. That’s why she took it upon herself to build and distribute Caring for Our Watershed Kits to help raise awareness and educate her peers about the importance of their watershed and of taking steps to care for their watershed.

Cassandra felt that it is very important to get children
involved at an early age so that they can be educated
about the environment and help preserve the world they
depend on for future generations. It’s important to raise awareness as many people take the watershed they live in, and the functions it provides, for granted. With her passion for raising awareness and of educating younger generations about the watershed they live in and what they can do, Cassandra hit 7 grade five classrooms in Lethbridge equipped with a 15 minute powerpoint presentation and 150 Caring for Your Watershed kits. Over 150 students heard her presentation and received a kit.

Each Caring for Your Watershed kit contained a watershed word search, bug jar, CFW seed bookmark, water warrior notepad, water warrior badge, water drop ball and a coloring sheet.

Cassandra wanted her project to be educational and fun at
the same time. What she didn’t expect to find out through
the implementation of her project was that she actually taught the teachers something about their watershed, as well as the children in the classrooms she visited.

Cassandra received corporate support for her project from Nutrien, Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, St. Mary River Irrigation District and the Oldman Watershed Council.

Otis and Friends: “The Mystery of Missing Water”

2011 Ponoka, Alberta Canada
otis
Kaitlin, Katie, Vickie and Melissa became involved in the Caring for our Watersheds contest as a classroom project at St. Augustine School in Ponoka. Their idea was to create a fun and educational books series for students in grades 2-4 about how their actions impact the watershed and what they can do to help.

The book series is called “Otis and Friends Environmental Adventures” with this premier book titled “The Mystery of Missing Water”. In the story Otis the duck’s pond is drying up due to high levels of water consumption in the nearby town. Luckily a special little girl who likes to walk by the pond notices the low water and her and her family start making changes to their water use. The neighbours take notice of their new habits and soon everyone is conserving water, saving Otis and his friends.

The book also has a fact sheet about the Northern Pintail Duck, who Otis is based on. There is also a list of 8 easy actions that families can take to reduce their water consumption. otis-3

The girls visited all of the grade 2-4 classrooms at their school for book readings, and the students all really enjoyed the book. After receiving funds from Nutrien, Keyera and Grey Wooded Forage Association for printing the book, they held a book launch party at their local library. The book has been distributed to all of the Parkland Regional Libraries, as well as through school visits by the Battle River Watershed Alliance.

St. James Global Leadership Peace Garden

2011 Calgary, Alberta Canada

As part of the Grade Nine Global Leadership Program at St. James School, Veronica Skebo and Charlotte Hardwicke-Brown participated in Caring for our Watersheds. Their idea was to expand their school Peace Garden to incorporate a rain garden.

It took more than just two students to fulfill this project. There were twenty-four students and staff working together. The final project measured around 110 metres squared. The team choose native trees and shrubs such as, White Spruce, Pincherry, and Aspen trees, Common Juniper, Red Twig Dogwood, Yellow Twig and Dwarf Birch shrubs.

Veronica said, “The different types of native plants give a more environment friendly feel and give diversity to the entire garden.”

With the help from Nutrien, North Glenmore Park Community Association, St. James Parent Council and the Education Society, the team raised $5,600.

Veronica went on to add, “The purpose of the garden
was to create and promote awareness and education
on the effect of watersheds and how we can help protect them. We also created the garden to preserve our watersheds through the use of a rain garden concept. We took a lot of time to learn about this concept and make it into a real life plan. Now that I see the amount of rain we gather, I know the concept works well. We believe that the concepts we have put into making this garden work will help protect the watersheds and all of the organisms that live off of the watersheds. The peace garden was originally created so that students can learn outside about our ecosystems and environment and now with the expansion, the peace garden will be used much more with the different concepts that were incorporated.”

Students from Vanscoy School Work Together to Implement Projects!

2010 Vanscoy, Saskatchewan, Canada
Vanscoy2
Vanscoy School had 7 out of the top ten finishes in the grade 7-9 category of the Caring for our Watersheds competition. The finalist teams from Vanscoy School have decided to work together to implement as many of the projects as possible. Their project ideas include new taps for the school, green space development around their school, education and awareness activities and composting.

“This project has shown me that the students are aware of the environment around them and are willing and able to be champions for change. We, as adults, just have to listen to them.” said Ms. Amanda Schafhauser, a grade 7 and 8 teacher at the Vanscoy School.

The Eco Garden project was developed by Grade 8 student Brooke Van Damme, who said “My project was called the Eco Garden. I wanted to implement my idea because it would be a good way to save water and stop water pollution while making Vanscoy School a more attractive place to be. I hope it will help Vanscoy be more aware of our watershed and the effects we have on it.” The students are leaving a lasting legacy for their school for generations to come. June 22, 2010 the students from Ms. Schafhauser’s grade 7 and 8 classes prepared and planted their green space garden. The planted trees will work as a shelter belt, sheltering the roadway and parking lot from the build up of snow while the gathered snow will melt into the ground. In the fall, the students will work the area again to prepare it for the coming winter.

Three out of the 7 projects presented by the teams from Vanscoy included new taps for their school to help minimize their wastage of water. As a result of their research, the students decided to go with an automatic sensor taps. 14 taps were purchased and installed in all of the school washrooms during the summer break.

The total budget for the student’s project is over $18,000, more than $8,000 of which is being donated by the students as their time, the school division’s efforts, and Lakeshore Tree Farms. The rest of the funds are provided by the Nutrien Caring for our Watersheds Project.

Youth Nature Club

2010 Lethbrige, Alberta, Canada
Club
Tyson Bohnert from Lethbridge was awarded $1000 to create an on-line Neighbourhood Stewards and Nature Club mentorship program. He performed live presentations, and used different mediums of interaction including website, workshops, videos, pictures, to inform about nature related facts and issues.
Continue reading…

Rain Barrels

2010 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

Kysha LaPlante and Dan-Elle Kramchynski from Mr. Kasun’s Grade 8 class at St. Edward School won first prize in the grade 7 to 9 category of the Caring for our Watersheds competition. The project plan developed by these two students was to decorate and supply rain barrels to participating schools in the Greater Saskatoon Catholic School Division. A total of 10 schools (plus their own school) were eager to participate in the project. The students worked together and managed to get the majority of the materials supplied in-kind from various suppliers, including the poly barrels themselves. As a result, the students only requested $150.00 from Nutrien to complete their project. Nutrien was delighted to present these students with the funds required.

Kysha and Dan-Elle did a wonderful job of decorating their rain barrel, encouraging other schools to decorate their barrels as well. Students from their school were involved with decorating the final projects.

Kysha and Dan-Elle took part in a presentation at their school commemorating Earth day on April 22, 2010. During this presentation, these two students presented their school with the $1000.00 awarded to the school because of their project.