Category Archives: The River Dawgz

On November 29th, 2017, in the Gaige lobby, the River Dawgz participated in the EACAP Community Awareness Event at Penn State Berks.  We shared our service project that we completed for Mr. Bob Folwell, the Schuylkill River Trail Project Manager, and our research that we completed on the Epidemic of Waste in Our National Park Systems.  Faculty members, students, and Hunter’s mother stopped by our table to check out our poster and Adobe Spark website.  The Adobe Spark website can be found at the following link: https://spark.adobe.com/page/cdtZ6yGU3w3e6/

On October 30^th, 2017, the River Dawgz were granted with another day to work on their EACAP project.  We decided to meet in the Franco building to work on our research report titled “The Epidemic: Waste in Our National Parks.”  After piecing together our report and cleaning up some other housekeeping duties such as updating our EACAP progress log, we went to the trail to detail and write the directions of our route down.  To get from Glenside Elementary to the Stone Cliffe Action Park Area, students, teachers, and community members will continue south bound on Schuylkill Avenue for a quarter of a mile.  Following this, they will take a right onto Colombia Street for a tenth of a mile before taking a left on Butler Street.  Once on Butler Street, you will walk and/or drive for another quarter mile until you reach the Schuylkill River National and State Heritage Area.  On the trail, we noticed that there was a trash can for every 100 feet or so, but there were not any recycling bins or cans.  We would like to suggest to Mr. Robert Folwell, the Schuylkill River Trail Project Manager, to look into recycling bins on the trail to prevent the water bottle and waste within the Schuylkill River epidemic.

On October 20^th, 2017, BISC 3 – Environmental Science was cancelled and we were given a free day to work on our EACAP project.  The River Dawgz met at Penn State Berks and car pooled together to the Glenside area of Reading, Pennsylvania.  Prior to beginning our journey and search for the trail, we mapped out the Glenside area using Google Maps and City-Data.com website for the Reading neighborhood.  Also, we drew the Barta bus routes onto the map helping to indicate where bus stops would possibly be located.

After driving around Glenside for about a half hour, we realized that the Schuylkill River Trail could not be reached from the eastern side of the map.  Finally, we came to the realization that the Tulpehocken Creek and Schuylkill River joined to form a fork.  Therefore, we drove towards the Tulpehocken Creek to Stonecliffe Action Park.  When we arrived at this destination, we spotted a sign signifying that we were in the Schuylkill River National & State Heritage Area.  We walked the trail, took pictures of the beauty in nature, and picked up trash or waste if and when we spotted any.  Throughout our walk, we noticed a run-down building painted in graffiti, a smoke tower, and gears that appeared to create electricity at one point in time.  We wonder what the significance of this building, gears, and smoke tower were for.  As we progress with our project, we plan to draw and finalize our map in hopes to promote Glenside Elementary students to come to the Schuylkill River Trail to enjoy nature and the beauty of this national heritage area.

As of September 29^th, 2017, the River Dawgz have been slowly, but surely working towards the milestone of a preliminary research outline indicating the organization of our final report, our initial research completed, and the sources explored.  The River Dawgz are exploring the problem of waste in national parks and its scope, causes, and consequences.  Thus far, we have researched a variety of sources including videos and current event articles.  As we progress, we would like to review a textbook or book, and a few literature reviews or journals.  As Hunter Beane viewed the video titled “Teddy Roosevelt V: ‘The National Parks Need Your Help,” he took notes and reflected on the content of the video.  From this video, John, Andrew, and Bailey were able to stem out into current events that related to our research.  We found Teddy Roosevelt V’s (above right) involvement in the environment to be interesting because of the family connection dating back to President Teddy Roosevelt’s (above left) first message to Congress.  In this message, he talked about the importance of water and forest conservation.  A few years later in 1916, the National Park Service was created “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”  The relative occurrence of these two events in the U.S. Environmental History & Policy reading further proves that science is ongoing, but also that waste in National Parks such as Denali, Grand Teton, and Yosemite are still occurring.

The Zero-Landfill Initiative by Subaru of Indiana Automotive has conducted a challenge that started out plain and simple with the recycling of paper, banding, cans, and plastic bottles with the lead of six park rangers, five park concessionaires, three NPCA members, seven Subaru employees, one park recycling expert, and two journalists.  Pilot projects were put in place to try and apply effective solutions to make national parks zero-landfill.  The three pilot projects are in Yosemite, Denali, Grand Teton with a focus on environmental issues, waste streams, and how to recycle.  Near one of the Schuylkill River bridges, hundreds of plastic water bottles have gathered up.  Therefore, we hope to provide classmates, faculty, and the community with information that they can apply in the Schuylkill River Heritage Area to try and limit the use of water bottles on the trail.

Today in our in-class meeting with Dr. Kazempour, we discussed how far we have come in terms of the research project and the service project.  As we continue to proceed with the research project, we plan to start our service project next weekend.  We plan to connect the Glenside neighborhood to the Schuylkill River Trail.  We have completed preliminary research of the area on Google maps and through the Schuylkill River Trail area on city-data.com.  The River Dawgz plan to follow President Teddy Roosevelt’s wise words of wisdom as they progress with the EACAP project, “Wildlife and its habitat cannot speak, so we must and we will.”

The River Dawgz consist of four team members (from left to right): Andrew Urban, Hunter Beane, John Wagner and Bailey McMillin.  Hunter Beane and Andrew Urban are both sophomores, while Hunter is a Childhood and Early Adolescent Education Major and Andrew is a Finance Major.  Bailey McMillin and John Wagner are both juniors and Criminal Justice Majors.

We plan to operate under the use of 4Cs in order to achieve our goal with Mr. Bob Folwell, the Schuylkill River Heritage Area Trail Project Manager.  The 4Cs include: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity.  Communication is the ability to share or exchange ideas in a professional manner among teammates and with Mr. Folwell.  Good communication will lead to collaboration, where Mr. Folwell and the River Dawgz will work jointly on reaching the team goal and end product.  The communication and collaboration between team members will involve critically thinking on how to improve the Schuylkill River Heritage Area.  Finally, creativity will include the use of imagination and original ideas to form an integrative and intriguing final product.

After our meeting with Mr. Bob Folwell in today’s class, we decided to focus on the creation of a map of trail access routes in one neighborhood of Reading to the Schuylkill River Trail.  The Schuylkill River Trail (SRT) access is limited as it passes through riparian communities such as Reading and West Reading.  We plan to develop routes to connect a single neighborhood to the SRT by bus, walking, and/or biking.  Our group’s focus will be on a neighborhood such as Glenside because its geographic location is close to the trail.  In our final presentation, we will display a map with the routes we have tested and chosen.  A map of the City of Reading can be found at http://www.city-data.com/nbmaps/neigh-Reading-Pennsylvania.html, as we will be using this in the upcoming weeks to walk the trails in beautiful, Fall weather.  Mr. Folwell will be receiving emails as we progress with the project.  In addition, the River Dawgz would like to research waste and recycling in park systems.