Mr. Kurt Moser, from Earth Force, a national organization that engages young people as active citizens to improve the environment and their communities, visited the Gunston Gator team on January 25. He came to Ms. Luz Chamorro’s classes to follow up on stream water monitoring at Troy Park that the students had done in October of 2009. Mr. Moser explained a six step process to decide on a community project. After discussion, the Gators focused on issues from the following list:
Trash/Litter
Erosion/Sediment
Pet-Animal waste
Fertilizer Overuse
Runoff Waste/Fecal Matter
Failing Sewer System
Industrial Waste
Pesticides
The students originally wanted to plant trees near the stream, but after being informed by Arlington County officials that this was not possible, they came up with the idea of a stream clean-up instead.
April 9, 2010 First Stream Clean-Up
On April 9th, the Gator science classes went to clean up a local stream at Troy Park. The students picked up trash and classified the trash for an hour and a half with the help of Ms. Chamorro and a county Park Ranger, Mr. Benjamin Williams. The stream is small, but very polluted. In total, the sixth graders collected 10 pounds of recyclable materials, 20 pounds of trash, and 80 pounds of scrap metal. The students found not only typical trash such as plastic bags and aluminum cans, but also some unusual items they did not expect to find in a stream such as many loose rusted pipes, metal scraps, clothing, and even a fence post! "I found a bag full of clothes", said Olivia W., student at Gunston.
April 12-21, 2010 Final Project Planning
Students and adults participating in the event were astonished to see how much trash there was in such a small area! "What can we do about this? What can we do so the community around the stream and park does not litter so much and does more recycling?" asked many students of their teacher. Ms. Chamorro invited the Manager from Shirley Park Giant Food store on Glebe Road, near Gunston to come to her science classes to brainstorm ideas to reach out to the community. Ms. Teresa Gibson and Mr. Eric Scarborough came to talk to one of the classes on Monday, April 12th. As a result of the meeting, it was decided to have another clean-up where the community would be invited to participate.
April 12-22, 2010 Second Stream Clean-Up on EARTH DAY!
Students created a flyer announcing the clean up and invited the community to participate, and Ms. Gibson had the cashiers at Giant distribute the flyers to all their customers the day before the clean up. The clean-up took place on Earth Day, April 22nd, from 2:30 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. Gunston Green Team and National Junior Honor Societymembers participated in the clean-up.
In addition, these sixth graders wrote a petition toVirginia Delegate Adam Ebbin requesting a 5-cent tax to be imposed on plastic bags in Virginia, just like the District of Columbia did. The students got over 400 signatures on the petition. Students were pleased to see that the Sun Gazette ran an article on their project in the newspaper on Earth Day.
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Nineteen students from Ms. Chamorro's classes chose to participate at the 2010 Earth Force Youth Summit to represent Gunston. Students shared the community project that they had been working on and personally presented the petition to Delegate Adam Ebbin. They had a chance to explore various topics related to the environment by visiting booths from the Alexandria Sanitation Authority, Delegate Ebbin, Joe Keyser (America's Compost King)andCalleva Outdoors. The students who attended the summit were:
Three Gunston students volunteered to present at the School Board Meeting on April 27, 2010. Emma B., Kelsey O.and Ingrid J.will share the evolution of the Earth Force community project and show pictures of the trash and the clean-up. They will also report on the Earth Force Youth Summit.
June 3, 2010
Earth Force and Gunston were featured in Virginia Delegate Adam Ebbin's recent Spring 2010 newsletter.
April 29, 2010
