2016, San Andres de Giles, Buenos Aires, Argentina
– Colegio Sagrada Familia –Students: Camilo Fernandez, Candela Mighetto, Valeria Manion, Fabrizio Saul Encinas Pinto
“Ecoclubs” are organizations constituted by children and young people who are committed to improving the quality of life of the population by promoting awareness of environmental care. This group of students proposes to start creating these institutions throughout the school basin, and they will be in charge of promoting.
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 
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.
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 6th 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.
2015 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Charlee and Kelsey from St. Edward School decided that the best way to improve their watershed was by educating and instilling environmental values in the younger generation! By educating and changing the behaviours of our children and youth and developing their relationship with our environment, long term positive environmental effects are achieved. They feel more connected to their watershed and the natural world, and so they want to work towards protecting it!
The students decided the best way to do this was by developing a colourful children’s book called “Sammy’s Flight over our Watershed.” They hand drew and developed a unique storyline that follows Sammy, a young squirrel, and Callie, his bird friend who explores their watershed and discovers that it 
is being impacted by the careless actions of humans. The story teaches younger grades the importance of taking care of their watersheds. The book provides a number of activities the students can do to improve their watershed such as cleaning up litter, making sure their car is being washed at a car wash, responsibly using chemical fertilizers and herbicides or using alternatives, and not dumping paint or oils down the storm drain. Charlee and Kelsey read their story to a number of classes in their school and donated the book to their school library to be used as a teaching tool for school teachers in grade 1-3.
Education and awareness are the first steps to improving our local watershed. This books ensures that there are many future water protectors who have learned the importance of our watershed through Sammy’s little journey!
This book is a creative way to educate children on their watershed. It will be a great resource for teachers to use in the classroom because it covers curriculum outcomes, and parents can read it to their children at home. The children’s book was given to daycare centers and classroom teachers in their school division. The school division granted the Charlee and Kelsey permission to implement this project further if given the chance.
2015 Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada
“When the students spend more time outside, they will become more aware of the environment and begin to appreciate its worth and want to take more care for what they do in the environment,” wrote Jessica Voth. The Selkirk student saw an opportunity in a nook between her school and the school’s library; a nook that had been abandoned and in much need of a clean-up. Jessica’s plans for the space included a rain barrel, cleaning out the overgrown plants and re-planting with herbs. She also suggested an outdoor bench for students to study at or eat lunch on, with the hopes of the space one day becoming an outdoor learning space.
Thanks to Nutrien, Jessica was able to purchase the bench that will set this plan into motion! “The area will be of value to everyone who uses it and spends time outside.”
2015 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Annika and Mykyla are a creative team. The duo proposed creating a children’s book to “teach kids good habits about treating the environment better.” The colouring booklet was drawn and designed by Annika and Mykyla, each page containing a different message about how we can care for the environment through good water saving habits. According to the girls, this is important because “ Children are who will inherit this world from the adults one day when they themselves become adults, it is important make sure that today’s kids grow up to have strong and friendly habits when taking care of the cities and towns we live in.”
Thanks to a contribution from Nutrien, a series of Klimate Kids booklets were created, printed out and distributed to a handful of lucky schools. Digital copies of the booklet have been shared with Manitoba Education so that other schools can access the files too!
2015 Greeley, Colorado, USA
Children are the future; therefore it’s important for them to have proper knowledge about our world to make it a better place.
To increase awareness, students launched a 4 week program into Mrs.DeLacruz’s fourth grade classroom, focusing on water conservation, energy, and the environment. This program included fun activities like planting trees, water cycle memory games, and the 4th grade students even raced solar powered toy cars made of recycled materials!
The elementary students are now knowledgeable about ways to help their local watershed by conserving water and energy. By focusing efforts into one classroom, each student now has a good understanding of a watershed. This will hopefully lead to a positive ripple effect, and the students sharing their learnings with their families and friends.
2015 Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
Jocelyn Lalach from St. Edward School is passionate about birds and is sharing that passion with others! Birds are an integral part of our watershed. Indeed, without them, many functions that they provide would no longer exist. Jocelyn explored the benefits of healthy bird populations and their benefits to the South Saskatchewan River Watershed such as reducing insect populations and seed transportation in the river valley.
Birds provide many benefits to our local watershed! Through transporting seeds in the river valley, 
birds help new native shrubs grow and root in the riparian area providing wildlife habitat and other ecological services. The riparian area is the zone along river or creek banks close to the water. This zone needs strong and healthy shrubs to help keep pollutants out of our water ways. Plants in the riparian area slow down water and help it infiltrate and filter through soil and root systems before entering our watershed. This process reduces the amount of runoff entering our water ways and helps to prevent pesticides, fertilizers, and other pollutants from entering our watershed. As an added benefit, these shrubs and their root systems provide structure for the soil along river and creek banks which prevent erosion. Lastly, birds eat insects. The healthier our bird populations in our watershed the more insects they eat and the less pesticides we use to control them ourselves!
Jocelyn developed a curriculum based program called “I Thought I Saw a Tweety Bird” that educates students in grades 2 and 3 about the different types of bird species found in the South Saskatchewan River Basin. She developed a bird unit that is available online here: http://ycojchill.wix.com/birds-unit with all the necessary tools for teachers and students to learn about the importance of birds to their watershed. Jocelyn has left her website up online for teachers to access the curriculum material.
2015 Portland, Victoria, Australia
Students from Bayview College in Portland were finalists in the 2015 Caring for our Watersheds competition, with their proposal called Environmental Empowerment.
Nathalia, Meg, Marlie & Sarra came up with an Environmental Education Program to teach younger students about their environment. They collaborated all their classes’ final ideas for the 2015 CFW competition into one educational program to raise awareness about their classes concerns.
They held a kids teaching kids day with the year 7 students at Bayview College running a range of environmental activities which focused on:
With constructive feedback from the year 7s the girls now plan to implement the program into the local primary schools as well.
This program is not only a fun filled day of environmental activities but it is teaching younger generations to care more for what is around them and how to look after their catchments environment now and into the future.
2015 Blackie, Alberta, Canada
The 2015 Caring For Our Watersheds 4th place contest winners were Brayden Brausse and Nicholas Locken from Blackie School. These students were concerned about micro beads in the watershed, and the impact these small pieces of plastic have on plants, animals and water quality.
To bring awareness to this issue, the students produced a video about the harmful effects of micro beads and the use of alternative products that do not cause harm to the watershed.
Mirco beads come in 2 forms—polyethylene and polypropylene, both of which are used in household products such as exfoliating face washes and toothpaste. Micro beads are no bigger 
than a grain of sand can pass through storm water and waste water treatment systems (unfiltered) into the watershed. This plastic can then be ingested by fish and other sea-life and move up the food chain into larger creatures.
Alternatives to products containing micro beads are plentiful and widely available. They include cleansers containing walnut shells, apricot seeds or oatmeal. Through their educational video, these students were able to provide information about the harmful effects of micro beads on the watershed, and inform people on available alternatives.