The Problem
Protecting and restoring parts of our local watershed.
Our Plan
Step 1 begins with monitoring: Wildlife, bacterial, and chemical monitoring within a specific pond. Then, addressing issues related to the degradation of water quality, and actively working to fix them. Plus a larger educational component that addresses water quality contributions of surrounding neighborhoods, and storm drain marking in our community. The Conservation Science class at Garden Gate Homeschool will be directing this project. This class is open to homeschoolers ages 10-15 yrs. We will also have multiple smaller projects within this larger project that we will open up to the public to assist with.
Themes Addressed
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Clean Water
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Education
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Water Pollution & Conservation
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Wildlife
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The Benefit
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People
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Animals
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Environment
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Here is how the project went:
This project is going great! We've learned a ton in the process, and are seeing results through water testing. Over the next year, we'll continue to monitor and take steps to restore the water and surrounding habitat, and will track results, which will tell us more about our efforts. (This is an on-going project that we "kick-started" over the past 5 months.)
Through this project I/we learned:
About our local watershed and water systems, including the basics of bacterial and chemical testing, how our water systems monitor our fresh water, and clean our waste water. We learned where storm drain water goes, and what's affected by unclean water. We learned about aquatic nuisance species, indicator species, our local amphibian species, and invasive species. And we learned how all of these things are connected, and steps we can take to make a difference in our communities when it comes to water quality.
What I/we might change:
How we put together the storm drain information packs, as a few of them broke apart and were found on the ground afterwards (there were cleaned up).
My/our favorite part of this project was:
Students really enjoyed the storm drain marking project, and seeing amphibians in their natural habitat during one of our surveys.
Some tips, tricks or fun facts about the project:
This project was possible because of stakeholder support from the property owners, and our local water systems. Our county water system really helped make this a successful project, so be sure to reach out for partnerships with other stakeholders in your community. Facts about our storm drain project: We assembled and distributed 135 information packets to houses in the area, marked and cleaned 24 storm drains, and collected six FULL bags of litter from the streets in this one day.