Green Cleaners

2016, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Madeline Mann from Miles Macdonell Collegiate in Winnipeg decided to improve the water quality in her community by convincing her school to change to more environmentally friendly cleaners.

“I live in the Cooks – Devils Creek watershed and I think the biggest problem this watershed faces right now is the fact that community that I live in has been on a boil water advisory since 2002.

The idea of switching out one of the school cleaning products with an environmentally friendly one is a simple way to reduce the amount of chemicals that our school is putting into our watershed. I have found the product I would want to switch it Green cleaners Manitoba student project with, I have done the necessary research and I have determined the cost and quantity that my school would need for cleaning. By changing into an eco-friendly product our watershed will benefit and the water quality will improve because there is less chemicals flowing into the watershed.”

Not only was Madeline successful, this was implemented in the whole school board and required no financial support from the contest.

Circle Garden

2016, Little Black River First Nation, Manitoba, Canada

Students at Black River Adult Education Centre wanted to go back to the land to learn. They wanted to use their traditional teachings to create a circle garden for the school to use and the community to learn from. “The benefits of sustainable garden are plenty. Gardening is an environmentally friendly way of using resources provided by nature, such as soil and rain water.”

Thanks to a contribution from Nutrien, students got to work, planting corn, beans, squash, potatoes, tomatoes and peppers. The garden is a team-effort that brings the students to an outdoor classroom where they can learn about growing their own organic food.

School Garden and Outdoor Classroom

2016, Carman, Manitoba, Canada

“Agriculture plays a large role in the Boyne River Watershed,” so Bailey felt it was important for School Garden and Outdoor Classroom Student Implementation Manitoba
“the students of Carman Collegiate to have a basic understanding and knowledge of how agricultural practices impact their water and watershed.” As Bailey wrote, “Farm run-off is a main concern to the water quality of the Boyne River Watershed. If more people are educated on the topic, more people will have the watershed in mind and will voice their concerns.”

Bailey proposed an outdoor learning environment at Carman Collegiate, consisting of an outdoor garden and classroom. Thanks to Nutrien, Bailey and her fellow students have created a place where students can learn “the basics of gardening, and farming and also concerns involving agriculture and the watershed.” This outdoor space ties in nicely to the school’s Agriculture class and is helping to create a new generation of “better informed future farmers.”

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.

FROM GARBAGE TO GARDEN

2015, Campbellford, Ontario, Canada

Alyssa and Josee from St. Mary’s Catholic Elementary School were appalled at how much organic household waste was going straight to the landfill. They decided to educate their community on the ease and impact of composting at home, placing 2^nd overall.

The two students developed a fun and interactive way to teach people the importance of composting, and the benefits of doing so. They held the one day event at a local park, with face painting, games and a barbeque.

Ontario Student Action Composters The end result of their hard work was giving away 100 composters to people in the Campbellford community. They hope that this will turn into a ripple effect and that people in their community will continue to spread the word.

We NEED to recycle batteries, not throw them away

2015, Trenton, Ontario, Canada

Mason and Max, grade 7 students from Murray Centennial Public School won third place for their “We need to recycle batteries not throw them away” proposal.

Mason and Max’s idea was to educate students and parents in their school community about the issue of improper disposal of batteries and organize a battery collection week at their school. The goal of their project is to reduce the number of people that don’t know what to do with their dead batteries and decrease the amount of batteries not being recycled properly.

ON Battery Recycling Finalists Mason and Max have already held a battery drive at their school where they collected approximately $4,000 batteries. As they are in grade 7 they will be returning to Murray Centennial in the fall of 2015 and plan to hold several battery drives in the 2015-2016 school year. Caring for our Watersheds implementation funding will be used to print educational materials promote the importance of recycling batteries and their collection program.

The Paper Waste Crisis

2015 Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Dr. Bajaj’s grade 8 science classes discovered how they could make their classroom more environmentally friendly. The students proposed using technology to help reduce paper use in the classroom.

“One problem our environment encounters is the pollution of paper waste. The papers we use in school and offices harm the environment. With all the ink and chemicals that are stained onto the papers, it too, poisons watersheds when not recycled or thrown away properly. Paper costs money and money comes from trees. One day, we will all be in danger when we overuse trees to harm nature as well as polluting air with the smoke that is released from paper factories.”

Thanks to a contribution from Nutrien, a document viewer was bought for the science classroom eliminating the need for so many student handouts. The document viewer is also interactive, and allows for students to get up close with nature- under the camera and in their classroom!

The New Face of Gardening

2015 Virden, Manitoba, Canada

At Virden Collegiate Institute, students Ethan and Jake, were concerned about flooding in the area. A flood impacted the town of Virden in 2014 wiping out the school’s learning garden and the town’s community gardens. In re-building the learning garden, Ethan and Jake considered going vertical, a sure way to protect plants from rising waters.

“This would benefit the watershed in many ways such as the aesthetic, direct economic, indirect economic, and scientific values. The scientific values allow for the garden to be studied by the Biology class, while the indirect economic values contribute to a reduction in carbon dioxide.”

Thanks to a contribution from Nutrien, Ethan and Jake have created a wall of miniature gardens, using pop bottles. This new face of gardening demonstrates how we can re-think new uses for old things; recycling pop bottles is a great way to start such a unique project!