Project Nature

2019, Berlin, Maryland, USA

Ten students from Berlin Intermediate School (BIS) (Heydein, Makai, Amber, Shane, Brandon, Brooklyn, Sage, Domnic, Lilah, Declan) created Project Nature in the Spring of 2019. The goal of Project Nature was to assess BIS’ school grounds and implement best management practices to improve their local Coastal Bays’ watershed. After weeks of research, democratically voting, and schoolground surveys, the students decided to undertake a three-part plan.

Plant a pollinator garden to promote native plants and encourage bees, birds, bats, and bugs to use the space.
Revitalize a neglected school trail through pine forest. This trail will be used as an outdoor learning space for teachers to bring their classes. The Project Nature students will clear the trails of common green briar, mulch the pathway, and plant native plants at the entrance.
Plant native trees around the otherwise open school grounds. These trees will provide needed shade and work as absorbers of stormwater runoff from the surrounding impervious surfaces.

Following the completion of their three-part project, students will create flyers to inform their student body and teachers of Project Nature. Their project video is also available for years to come on YouTube, so teachers and parents can view what the 2019 Project Nature students implemented to make their school grounds more environmentally friendly.

Project RORG (Run Off Rain Garden)

2019, Hernandon, Virginia, USA

Project RORG (Run Off Rain Garden)

For several months, David, Elizabeth, Pranith, Tadek, Shamiya, Kheya and Tapthi, who make up Team RORG (Run Off Rain Garden) have been researching, designing and implementing their project.

The two original sites were chosen because of they were in an appropriate spot for a rain garden and were cleared by Miss Utility for excavation. However, after boring multiple spots to test the soil, it was determined the soil was too rocky for a rain garden.

The benefits of the project are a significant amount of future run-off in the project area watershed will be captured by the hybrid rain garden where sediment and pollutants will be removed, and most of the water will have time to percolate into the ground rather than rushing the Horsepen Creek, causing additional erosion.

Project RORG (Run Off Rain Garden)

Three additional sites were chosen, all of which receive run-off from uphill areas. The three sites were cleared by Miss Utility and soil bore tests were performed. Due to the rockiness of the soil it was decided that a modification off the current design would be best. After additional research, a hybrid design featuring coconut fiber biologs as check dams was adopted.

Technical assistance and on-site consultation has been given by Mr. Daniel Schwartz, a soil scientist with the NoVa Soil & Water Conservation District, who has also arranged a survey of the current project site.

Save the Forest

2018-2019, Arlington, Virginia, USA

Dante, Rodrigo, Elle, Karin, Lauren, Corey, Simon, Ann, Burak, Raphael, and Sam were concerned that invasive species were killing trees and destroying their ability to filter water. They researched species that were causing the problems in Four Mile Run, which empties into the Potomac River.

The students focused their attention on eliminating kudzu and bamboo shoots from the park near their school. They intend to cut the kudzu and uproot the bamboo shoots. It is their hope that the healthy trees will be able to reduce the FCB and other pollutants in the runoff to the stream. The students have a further plan to add trees and bushes to the areas around the school.

Now that the students can identify these invasive species, they will be able to protect trees and shrubs. The students have said they believe they will be able to educate their families and friends to help balance the natural filtration system for the watershed.

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.

CONSOLIDATE VILLA ESPIL AS A BUTTERFLY GARDEN

2018 Villa Espil, San Andres de Giles, Buenos Aires, Argentina

EES N° 5, Villa Espil, San Andrés de Giles. Students: Mateo, Isaias, Tamara, Candela

This project is based on the winning project of 2016, Villa Espil, a Garden for Butterflies. It intends to regenerate a biodiversity production space, involving everyone in town, by planting plants that contribute to the return of many butterfly species that today have disappeared due to the lack of environment that favors their development.

butterfly garden student action villa espil

The new proposal is to build a small nursery / laboratory within the school premises in which students can learn with hands-on learning. The aim of the nursery is to learn how to produce native plants that host butterflies, which will be needed in the gardens of the town, and also come in contact with manageable complex biological variables involved in the cycle of reproduction of butterflies related to the native plants of the place.

This project will be completed December 2019.

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.

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.

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

CREATING A MORE BEAUTIFUL TOMORROW

2018, CINCINNATI, OH, UNITED STATES
Beautiful Tomorrow

While driving to and from school, Lily Melink would notice maintenance crews mowing the medians and berms of highways and local roads. She realized that mowing and maintaining acres of grass multiple times a year is responsible for releasing varying levels of CO2. Since the burning of fossil fuels is the main contributor to the high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, Lily wanted to find an effective solution to reduce the number of times the grass had to be cut, and therefore reduce CO2 emissions. She decided to plant wildflowers in these spaces to replace grass because wildflowers only require maintenance once a year.

This project was inspired by programs for planting wildflowers in North Carolina and Texas that Lily had read about. When her environmental science teacher introduced the Caring For Our Watersheds program to her class, Lily decided that it would be the perfect opportunity to implement a similar project in Cincinnati. She read more about wildflowers and learned that they have more benefits to the environment than just reducing the amount of maintenance and therefore CO2. Wildflowers also help prevent erosion and provide habitat area for wild life such as pollinators.
Beautiful Tomorrow

Lily hopes that her project can educate the public on simple actions they can take to benefit the environment and increase community pride in their surroundings. She has already had positive feedback from the public, and says that “It doesn’t take much to make a positive impact on the environment or a community!

Begging for Air (Song)

The inspirational song, Begging for Air, was submitted in the 2017-2018 school year by Manitoba finalists Alexander Clemis and local singer-songwriter, Faouzia Ouihya. The ballad is written from the perspective of a tree, with the intention to motivate others to create change in their community.

“The most important aspect of our solution is it can help inspire humans of all ages all over the world to protect and even promote their own
watershed for the future generations to come.” -Faouzia.

Participating teachers received a Caring for Our Watersheds USB with a copy of the song and an informational poster.