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Big Laurel Learning Center
The Big Laurel Learning Center will be planting pine trees with approximately 200 volunteers at Lenore K-8 School and Tug Valley High School. The project was initiated by students at both schools. By planting pine trees, the organization hopes to trap creek sediment and replace trees destroyed by floods. Two AmeriCorps members will be assisting both school principals. The Big Laurel Learning Center will also be doing an Earth Day commercial that will be aired at local schools to promote Earth Day awareness. Approximately 125 students will be involved in the process.
Friends of Deckers Creek - Young Friends of Watersheds
The Friends of Deckers Creek Youth Advisory Board (YAB) will host the 3rd annual Skate Jam at Marilla Park’s Skate Park in Morgantown, West Virginia. YAB wanted to bring attention and show appreciation to the many area youth who use alternative modes of transportation around Morgantown. The Skate Jam is an educational celebration that seeks to educate participants about their local environment and encourage them to get involved by volunteering with local organizations. At the event, 12 YAB volunteers will lead several hands-on watershed education activities including acid mine drainage tie dyes, stream bug identification, and rain barrel construction. YAB and GMAYC are also sponsoring a nature writing class prior to the event. Youth participants will compose reflective pieces about their local environment. GMAYC hopes to print and bind a book of selections from the class and sell them at the Skate Jam with proceeds benefitting YAB.
Friends of Deckers Creek - Sabraton Greenspace Project
The FODC Youth Advisory Board will participate in a showcase of Morgantown youth programming when Gayle Manchin visits the Morgantown Public Library on Earth Day, Wednesday April 22nd from 6:30-8:00pm. This event will celebrate the close of Morgantown’s “Year of the Child” and highlight the five promises (WV Promise). YAB members will lead young Kaleidoscope participants in a hands-on watershed education activity. They will also discuss the plans for the YAB outdoor classroom and Sabraton Greenspace Project.
Girl Scouts of Shawnee Council
- WET Club at Camp White Rock: This club will be conducting a river clean-up for the Potomac Watershed and facilitating a “Duck Workshop” to learn about the ducks coming into the camp that use the Cacapon River. They will have a sleepover with activities the night prior to the clean-up.
- Musselman High Science Discovery WET Club: On April 20, 2009, this club will plant 20 trees around the swale next to the student parking lot at Musselman High School.
- Pleasant View Elementary Science Discovery WET Club: This club will help to plan and implement a Family and Community Earth Day Celebration on April 24, 2009. The participants will clean up trash, plant flowers, paint tables, and various other service projects at Pleasant View Elementary and at the community center. The club is also sponsoring a poster/essay contest for the school during Earth Day Week. The club members also made Earth Day posters for the school trash cans and will teach their classmates what they learned about their watershed. Earth Day plates made by the members will be displayed throughout the school.
- Tomahawk Intermediate Science Discovery WET Club: This club is sponsoring a poster/essay contest for the school during Earth Day Week. The club members also made Earth Day posters for the school trash cans and will teach their classmates what they learned about their watershed. Earth Day plates made by the members will be displayed throughout the school.
- Mineral County Science Discovery WET Club: The school will be having a book fair, so the members have planned activities to be done with the students, including a trash sculpture. A tree planting ceremony will also occur. On April 22, 2009 the club will attend a water conference.
Greenbrier River Watershed
The Greenbrier River Watershed will host projects for FLOW Day of Service in two different locations on April 25. First, Pocahontas County's Great Greenbrier River Race will have Earth Day Awareness activities all day.
Re-enactors for Riders of the Flood to show up in full regalia to troll the crowd in Marlinton as they pass out awareness flyers and encourage participants to enjoy the river's history, not just its recreation. Second, the Super Science Fair at Eastern Greenbrier Middle School will have teach approximately 40 children about watershed health in four classes.
High Rocks for Girls
High Rocks for Girls will be helping with the Great Greenbrier River Race, which is a community event that raises money for the Greenbrier River Trail. The Race involves canoeing or kayaking on the river, cycling, and running. High Rocks’ 20 volunteers will have an information table about watershed health, run a recycling station for the race lunch, give out evergreen saplings, and help marshal the course. Through this project, High Rocks hopes to raise awareness of issues in the Greenbrier River Watershed and involve citizens in recycling and planting trees. The organization will also be publicizing its next community event—created and organized by teenage High Rocks girls— the Arts and Beautification Festival, which promotes the health and beauty of the Cherry River and involves youth in cleaning up and beautifying the town of Richwood. The organization will also unveil an educational trail created by elementary school students working with High Rocks girls. The educational trail was the result of a successful partnership between High Rocks and the Family Resource Network and Marlinton Elementary. Visit www.highrocks.org or www.greenbrierrivertrail.com for more information.
Monroe County
FLOW Day of Service will be the launch for the Mountain View Middle School “Green Team”. The “Green Team” will be collecting trash from around the school grounds and from the Alexander Fitness Trail next to the school. After the trash is collected, it will be sorted and categorized to see what can be recycled. The results will be used to create a recycling program for the school. Approximately 20 youth and two teachers will be involved. Monroe County hopes to launch the “Green Team” as a model for an environmental club at each school in the region. The secondary goal is to clean up the school grounds. The project is unique because it takes a normal clean-up project and turns it into a waste stream study that’s conducted after the trash is collected. Participants will receive “Green Team” t-shirts at the event.
Morgantown Learning Academy
The Morgantown Learning Academy (MLA) will integrate the FLOW Day of Service with its traditional Earth Day Celebration on Friday April 24, 2009. This will be an all-day event involving the school’s 106 students, 12 faculty members, volunteer parents, and the members of the WVU FLOW Team. This year, the focus of the celebration will be a trash clean up along West Run in MLA property and the neighboring parcels that grant us access. Like many West Virginia creeks, West Run has received over the years a considerable load of household items such as worn tires, old appliances, and other household trash. The children, under adult supervision, will pull “safe” trash out of the creek bed, and parent volunteers will haul loads to the Morgantown dump. In addition, the WVU FLOW Team will display materials, designed for an elementary school audience, illustrating the acid mine drainage problem along West Run and will advertise this summer’s workshops. To this end we will carry out a demonstration on collecting stream chemical data and water samples.
New River Birding and Nature Center
During the installation of a new sewer line at the New River Birding & Nature Center/Wolf Creek Park, living trees were debarked, rhododendron groves were cut haphazardly, stream banks were disturbed, and the tributary was partly diverted. As a FLOW Day of Service project, volunteers will work to improve the stream and riparian habitats. Approximately 24 high school students and 12 adult volunteers will be involved. Through the project, volunteers are hoping to: improve the stream along the sewer line; improve and enlarge a small pond; prune damaged trees, shrubs, and other vegetation; convert the sewer line right-of-way into an interpretive nature trail; and engage young people in environmental and community learning opportunities. Also, on Earth Day and the FLOW Day of Service, student participants will put up posters at their respective schools and give short presentations about watersheds and volunteerism to selected science classes. On days immediately preceding, the FLOW project at New River Birding & Nature Center will be publicized through articles in local newspapers.
Friends of Blackwater - North Fork Watershed
For the FLOW Day of Service, volunteers with Friends of Blackwater will be leading an Earth Science Class on water monitoring and giving a brief history of the North Fork of the Blackwater water with information on what happens when metals dissolve into the water, the need for clean water, what happens when our water is toxic. The group will also demonstrate how to monitor the water, collect various water samples and examine the samples. The class will use charts to talk about Thomas Lake and the trail that’s being planned to connect the rail trail to the lake. Volunteers will be recruited to participate in a walking water monitoring day on April 18th. During the water monitoring, pictures will be taken and students will receive t-shirts.
Oglebay Institute's Schrader Center
Oglebay Institute plans to host a massive Earth Day Celebration on April 25th. During that time, many different team building events are planned, along with crafts, games, and the announcement of the winners of the Ohio Valley Recycling Competition. Approximately 20 volunteers will be involved. Through this project – organized by sixth graders - the organization hopes to foster enthusiasm and unity for outdoor nature and stewardship of the Earth. Also, the amount of recyclables collected in pounds from Ohio County Schools in a six-week period will be unveiled.
Piney Creek Watershed
During FLOW Day of Service, several activities are planned by the Piney Creek Watershed. First, a Concord University scholarship will be made available to a high school senior that has completed 32 hours of service and is selected as the outstanding senior in the program. Also, several groups will be working on trails in the region. A West Virginia Envirothon will be held during National Volunteer Week, with participation from the local high school biology club.
Potomac Valley Audubon Society
Students in the Potomac Valley Audubon Society Watershed Education Initiative have been participating in a school-wide “Trash Out” since March and leading up to FLOW Day of Service. Each school decides on a day suitable to the teachers and staff for the students to attempt to reduce the amount of lunch waste produced on one day. The 4th graders in the Watershed program have been creating publicity for the program: posters, school announcements over the PA system, going to other classes, etc. In some classes, the students have agreed to “wear” a grocery-type plastic bag on the day and put all of their own trash in the bag rather than throwing it away, in an attempt to become more aware of how much trash one student can accumulate in one day. The students are hoping to help other classes become more aware of the amount of trash that is thrown out each day in school. They have learned that the average student discards 67 pounds of trash each year.
Step by Step
Step by Step will host a FLOW Day of Service event at the Big Ugly Community Center on Saturday, April 18th. In addition to FLOW participants from each site (currently around 75 youth), approximately 15 college volunteers from the Bonner’s Scholar Program at Earlham College are expected. The group will also invite community members to participate in the event. Based on past Big Ugly events, the group expects at least 50 volunteers to participate throughout the day. The Bonner Scholars and our teen participants will lead and participate in a variety of service options with community members and youth. There will be a stream clean-up and a riparian restoration project from the morning through the afternoon. Teens will collect voice recordings of community members and invite them to sign up for more in-depth interview times later in the day, or in the following weeks. They will use this information to make digital stories (combining photos, voice and music) about local water issues. In the afternoon, there will be a forum on water and wastewater issues about Lincoln County. Youth and community members will have the chance to express opinions and ideas, and a short report will be written with suggested actions to take. Throughout the day, teens at Big Ugly will also have the chance to present the progress of some of their FLOW projects (rain barrels, global exchange, youth mentoring) to community members.
Wyoming County 4-H
Wyoming County 4-H youth will plant trees at the community garden in Mullens. They will showcase the projects that they completed during the Project FLOW afterschool program. One of these projects includes making sidewalk pavers out of recycled material. These pieces of art will be installed at a community park. Youth will also learn about ways to prevent storm water run-off and the affects of sedimentation on aquatic life. Approximately 20 youth and 10 adult volunteers will be involved. From the project, youth will learn the important role that vegetation plays in reducing storm water run-off and erosion by planting trees. They will also play an important role in community beautification. Finally, youth will be able to tell other volunteers about their progress in other Project FLOW activities. The activities on earth day will be video taped for the documentary that will be presented to the community. |
