At the beginning of the year, we were given a project to complete that will help and make our community a better place to live. Looking through the list there were many great options. One that really stood out to us was a project called “Kittatinny Sierra club”. We knew right away that this project was the right fit for us. It was time to help our water and make them cleaner. A couple of classes later the four of us got together and were eager to get started, so we started doing some research that may help us. Our first task was to come up with a name to call ourselves. After some brainstorming and little google searches, I finally suggested a name to Jamie and as usual, she got excited to use this name “ Achievable Stream”. After we all got to know each other we decided to assign each member with a role that best fit their strengths to make the project run smoothly. Dan was team leader making sure the team stayed on task and got assignments done on time. Jamie was team liaison communicating with the Sierra Club, the team, and Dr. Kazempour. Myles and Aarchi kept track of our progress logs taking notes of when we met and what we completed when we met. Aarchi was in charge of proofreading all assignments and posting on the EACAP webpage.
We then got started looking for ideas to base our potential pollution sources. After some time we all got together and did some water testing near Penn State. One at Tulpehocken road, gring mill springs and one near Schuylkill river near industrial plywood. The water testing included five major test Nitrate test in which we had to measure pH level of water, Phosphate test were we were actually testing how much phosphate does the river have and some probe test like temperature test and conductivity test with the calibrated device and the major one we performed was the dissolved oxygen test which is to measure amount of oxygen present in the water. After all of our testing, we hosted a film screening with collaboration with Penn State and Sierra club. This film “ What lies Upstream” is based on water pollution and politics over it. After the screening, we hosted a panel presentation and panel discussion, where we had some people who came from some environmental organization, local community, and some Penn State professor. Finally, we presented a poster of our service and the final class presentation of our service.
Overall we discovered how important it is to work together to help the environment and teach or remind others to do the same. We gained knowledge and appreciation on the water testing. It is very important that we teach the community about the major issues chemicals and other pollution brings to earth’s water when not disposed of correctly. This project showed us how easy it is to work with others to do something as simple as making plastic water bottles into a pot for a flower. We gained the importance of the environment through this project. Our message to the youth would be to love the world around you. We would tell them to plant more grass around the factories and waste treatment plants help the environment as much as possible. We would express how important it is to work with others and to learn new ways to help our planet out.