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This past week has been pretty productive in terms of clean ups.
Saturday, August 1st, we helped a Brookdale faculty member, Kathleen Devine, and her students, organize and participate in a beach sweep at Sandy Hook. We cleaned for over an hour and got rid of a lot of the excess waste unfortunately left behind by many beach-goers.
Not only did the participating volunteers understand the importance of keeping the beach clean, as well as the entire ecosystem, many people who were already on the beach that day were turning their heads and noticing that we were cleaning up trash. Perhaps those people are now more aware of their own waste and more conscious of what they do with it.
Thursday, August 6th, was our Brookdale Campus Cleanup. Although it was a rainy morning, we still had a good handful of volunteers come out. Some included a girl scout troop from Middletown that our education interns have been working with, members of the Honors Society at Brookdale, and a few St. John Vianney High School students. Linda Mass, director of experiential learning and career services, also an AmeriCorps commissioner, was happy to speak to volunteers about the importance of volunteer service and keeping New Jersey's waterways clean. Rich Frank, executive director of facilities on the Brookdale Campus, and Assemblyman Samuel Thompson, also said some words regarding the importance of keeping the Navesink Swimming River Reservoir clean. Volunteers cleaned for about an hour and a half, and were then given lunch and a free performance from singer songwriter, Mimi Cross, who is also performing at the Clearwater Festival in Asbury Park this Saturday.
Saturday, August 8th, as part of River Palooza, a cleanup was organized at Natco Lake. Christian Rathbone, another summer intern, was able to get a solid volunteer group of about 20 people to help clean. The area was filled with trash and we were able to clean up a lot of it. Although the summer iswinding down, we hope to organize another cleanup for the end of August at Poricy Park. Our Earth Day event was there but there is still garbage in anarea that used to be a farmer's dump site. Through these cleanups, we have been able to not only clean up trash, but spread the message of keeping New Jersey's waterways clean.
This summer, President Obama is calling upon all Americans to participate in our countries recovery through the United We Serve initiative. The President has said that the challenges America faces are unprecedented, and that we need to build a new foundation for economic growth in America.
We here in New Jersey Community Water Watch are working hard this summer to do just that.
All around New Jersey, our chapters are working to get the community involved and educated about our state’s poor water quality issues. We have been busy planning and recruiting volunteers to help us teach, monitor streams and clean up our water ways. We have also been teaming up with a few other community groups around the Middletown area to combine our efforts and resources into doing as much as possible together to benefit the environment in our communities.
A few times over the summer, the most recent being last week, we here at Water Watch have met with the team from Brookdale Community College’s College Action Team for Sustainability to discuss ways to get the college and the community more involved in “going green.” We have also been attending the Middletown Environmental Commission meetings to get the latest environmental happenings around the area and to see what we can do to help out. We have come up with a few ideas and locations for clean ups and talks of a kayak launch are in the making, which will be further chronicled in later blogs.
Our idea for Riverpalooza came about in early June and the all the bits and pieces of ideas are beginning to come together to form the big picture for the statewide cleanup that is without a doubt going to be a great day.
This month, after weeks of planning lessons and gathering materials, we began our Environmental Education circuit in Monmouth County. Because environmental education should not just stop at with the youth, we extended our services throughout more of the community. In addition to teaching at Atlantic Highlands and Highlands Recreation summer camps, we will also be involved in educating the Middletown and Holmdel Girl Scouts and we are doing weekly lessons with senior citizens at We Care Adult Care in Middletown.
The first lesson we did on Friday July 10th for 35 people at We Care Adult Care was to illustrate the geologic formation of an aquifer, how pollution can get into ground water, and how this pollution can end up in drinking water wells. We built an edible aquifer with chocolate chips, vanilla ice cream, ginger ale, sprinkles, food coloring and a straw to serve as the gravel aquifer, confining later, water, soil, pollution and a water pump, respectively. With a few red food coloring drops in the Edible Aquifers, it was possible to show the students how easy it is when doing everyday activities, such as washing the car or watering the lawn, for contaminants to leak into our groundwater and ultimately on or in our bodies. We ended the afternoon with a fun game of Groundwater Jeopardy which tested everyone’s knowledge of what we had learned throughout the day.
Hopefully together with the help of our community and volunteers we can reach our goals and help you reach your own goals for helping out in the fight for clean water.
What a crazy, fun and successful first complete week of lessons we had!
Monday, Cat, Kendyll, Lisa, and I, started the day somewhat early at about 9am, meeting at Lisa’s house. It was our first lesson with Highlands Recreation Summer Camp.We were doing the “Long Haul” lesson. I was a bit nervous when I saw the kids because I hadn’t taught little kids since last semester during alternate ed. Week. However, I the Highlands Recreation group is pretty smart. They knew what water conservation was. One girl was even talking about global warming and how polar bears are becoming endangered. After we gave them some information on water hauling we did our activity! We split them into 2 groups of 10. They went down to the water and had to do a relay race. It was a race to see which team could fill the garbage can with buckets of water the quickest, while being conscience of not spilling the water! My team lost, not only did the other team fill theirs the quickest, but I was a bit wet. I was holding up the garbage can so it wouldn’t fall over as they were tossing the water in the can. All in all it was a fun day. They learned quite a bit and had a lot of excitement. I think they are ready for us next week! Tuesday I trained a few volunteers on some lessons for the following week. One volunteer, Shannon, was a substitute teacher and the other volunteer, Brett, takes an environmental studies class so they understood the lessons very well. They are ready to volunteer!
On Wednesday, I had the We Care Adult Care lesson scheduled for 11am. Today we started watching “Flow: for the love of water,” a documentary on the world water crisis. It went over well, they can’t wait for next week to finish it. I also brought a book by Rachel Carson “The Sense of Wonder” for them to peek at. I thought they’d like it. It’s got really neat pictures in it. A lot of them who did get a chance to look at it really did appreciate them.After I left We Care, I went home to set up for the Middletown Girl scouts. I was preparing the “Enviroscape” lesson and the “Edible Aquifer” lesson for them. When I got to Suzanne’s house (the troop leader), she welcomed me with open arms.The girls, about 8 of them, showed me around the yard. Then Suzanne showed me and Brett, the other volunteer who graciously came to help me out today, the requirements the girls need to attain their eco-friendly badge.
We started off with the “Enviroscape” lesson. They did like the part where Brett and I put food dye which symbolizes pollution and then use a mister as rain and they see how all the pollution washes down it the streams. Using visuals seems to help the kids comprehend the overall message of the lessons better. After that we did the “Edible Aquifer” lesson that Kendyll discussed in the previous blog. After Brett and I cleaned up and said our goodbyes to the girls and Suzanne, the girls got in their suits and hopped in the pool. It was a lovely day of water education.
Thursday was more training for our great Water Watch volunteers! I trained 2 brothers named Matt and Mark and Kendyll’s sister Emily. We went over 3 lessons; “Long Haul”, “Enviroscape”, and the “Edible aquifer” lessons. It was a fairly easy day. They are coming to teach with me on Monday and Tuesday of next week. All of your help, volunteers, makes a huge difference!
On Friday, I met with some volunteers at Brookdale. So happy that there are a lot of college kids getting involved this summer! We went over 3 lessons: “Long Haul”, “Enviroscape”, and the “Edible aquifer” lessons. Both Volunteers Katie and Luke seemed to understand it all completely. They are coming to teach on Monday at the Highlands Rec. group and seem really excited. I think now that they’ve seen the lessons and I explained it to them they aren’t as nervous. After Luke and Katie left, Cat met me and we discussed some plans for her clean up on August 6th. It’s at Brookdale, come out and give us a hand!
This week would not have been nearly as easy without the help of all our volunteers. It is nice to see that people are taking Obama’s “Call to Serve” to heart and that people our age are doing everything they can to lend a hand to their community and the environment. If all continues as is, it looks like this summer we are going to reach a lot of people about keeping their water clean! That’s what we’re here for after all, right? So if you have some extra time on your hands and want to get involved with volunteering, get in touch with us at any time!
Summer of the ArtsThis summer has been a fantastic fusion of the arts and sciences. Using a mural, podcast, blog, video project, art education and concerts to raise awareness about the importance healthy waterways, we have recived greatfeedback and had a lot of participation in each project.During June and July, I participated in a course at Princeton University called "Communicating Sustainability" which focused on conveying complex environmental topics through understandable language and images in podcastsand short documentaries. I produced a podcast about the state of thewater quality in Lake Carnegie and is working on a short film about the Delaware River.There are two mural projects, one with kids and one with artists. The project with kids is in collaboration with CitySmiles and is six workshops lead by Maggie, Kelly and Jackie. First, Maggie and Kelly do an environmental education lesson and then Jackie relates it to an art project.Next week we're starting on a mural about water which will be kept at the Mill Hill Park's community center.The other mural project will be completed at the Rutherford Avenue Park in Trenton with Leon Rainbow and Dean from TerraCycle. The theme will be "Water Makes the World Go 'Round" and painting began yesterday. Over the nextcouple of weeks, the mural will grow to incorporate mother earth, pipes, the industrial landscape of Trenton and more.Wednesday evening, WW organized a benefit show to fund the murals at Small World Coffee in Princeton. Five bands played, including Ja'c, Paella!, Dinner, Red Hawk Fly and the Michael Kragh Band. Well over a hundred people turned out and it was a great night of art, music and environmentalawareness.Tomorrow, Riverpalooza!, the statewide cleanup event will take place at ten sites around the state. Princeton Water Watch has been coordinating the site at Assunpink Park in Trenton to cleanup Assunpink Creek and will be providing "Breakfast and Bluegrass" to all volunteers. Breakfast will be served at 10:00 and Prospect Crossing will start playing at 11:45.We're all looking forward tomorrow and working with the kids, Leon and Dean in the coming weeks. Thank you to everyone who has helped and we look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow!
Participate in upcoming education events
