Category: Berks County Parks & Recreation Department

The Pink Lillies at Northeast Middle School

jjf6268Berks County Parks & Recreation Department

Pink Lillies 

Introduction:

Jhoanna: Hi! I am a second-year Business Management/Marketing major. I’m a commuter from Lancaster PA, and I am a part of the Penn State Berks dance team, entrepreneurship club, and pavement club. My hobbies include spending time with my family & friends, singing, and taking nature walks.

Melania: Hi! I am a second-year marketing student. I commute from Lancaster Pa. At Penn State, I am a part of the berk’s dance team and the entrepreneurship club. My hobbies include swimming, traveling, and spending time with my friends.

Emily: Hi! I am a second-year student majoring in Psychology. I am a commuter from Shillington PA. At Penn State Berks I am a part of the Penn State Berks Dance team. Outside of school, I love traveling, and spending time with friends!

Walymar: Hi! I am a third-year student majoring in Business Management/Marketing. I am from Reading Pa, so I commute to campus and I am a part of the dance team here at Penn State Berks. Outside of school, I enjoy baking and spending time with friends and family.

Brief description of research issue:

Our team collaborated on land use with The NorthEast Middle School, located in Reading PA. We worked on their courtyard to bring an inclusive, live, and fun outdoor environment for the kids to explore, and learn in another place outside the classroom. The courtyard in the northeast middle school was a piece of land that over the years was not being used and has become disorganized. We were allowed to work on revamping the pots used for plants giving some color to the compost bin, and cleaning up the grass area around it to overall give light, and a better environment for the kids.

Brief description of your service project:

Our team worked at The Northeast middle school. We focused on a small section of their courtyard that consists of large flower pots, and a compost bin. We worked together to bring this area to life for the students by  cleaning up weeds, raking leaves, removing dead bushes out, and a large mint plant as well. We cleared out the flower pots and got them ready for next season to be filled with beautiful flowers for the students to be able to admire and enjoy. The last step was revitalizing the exterior of the compost bin, and flower pots. By doing this we painted the pots a vibrant red to shine light upon the school’s colors being red, white and black. We also painted the compost bin in hopes that the students and staff would be motivated to use the bin or even incorporate a compost day into the school year where the students will be able to learn about compost and why it’s so important for the environment.

Summary/Reflection: 

Throughout this EACAP project, we have learned the importance of land use, and how there are so many ways to prioritize the use of land. In our EACAP project at the Northeast Middle School, their courtyard needed our help. We were able to use our knowledge on land use and clean up a small patch of land that will be later used for planting, compost, etc., and make this a place where students will able to learn about the cycles in land usage. All of us gained knowledge on how important it is to help locally with small acts of community service and how it can impact others. Our message to the youth or individuals is to appreciate your surroundings, and how the land around you is being used!

Press photo below to view our land use research: 

The Pink Lillies
At Northeast Middle School
Environmental & Sustainability EXPO
Environmental & Sustainability EXPO

 

Nature’s Agents Attack Earth Day

iho5005Berks County Parks & Recreation Department

Natures Agents!🤫

 

 

Nature’s Agents Team Photo

Who are Nature’s Agents

Ife- My name is Ifeoluwa but I go by Ife for short. I am a second year at Berks majoring in Political Science.

Liz- My name is Elizabeth, I am a sophomore here at Penn State Berks and I am a Criminal Justice Major while also minoring in Psychology. 

Kelly- My name is Kelly, I am a Sophomore here at Penn State Berks currently studying Communication Arts and Sciences.

Research Issue: 

We selected Greenhouse gasses for out research issue. Greenhouse gases are gasses in the atmosphere that raise the surface temperature of the Earth. It disrupts the climate, weather patterns, oceans, and the overall environment. There are different type of gasses consisting of transportation, waste, buildings, and energy. Some of the main causes are by human hand such as the burning of fossil fuels. We hope that through eco-friendly sources and methods we can better the environment. 

Earth Day at Berks Campus

*Click the link in the image to our narrated presentation!

 

Brief Description:

As a group we applied our strengths to Berks County Earth Day 2024…whether that be creativity, leadership, or marketing skill. Over the course of a few months through multiple forms of communication and meetings we gradually pitched into Earth Day. By making posters, maps, data sheets, and helping with logistics we managed to successfully execute this project.  In the picture below we worked at the Infobooth which was like a directory. We would direct exhibitors and volunteers, answer questions, and we sold Earth Day T-shirts which we are wearing in the picture below. 

Ife, Liz, and Kelly at Earth Day at the Infobooth

*Click the link in the image to our service video!

Reflection:

This year, our group has had the privilege to work with the event, Berks County Earth Day 2024. This year marks the 54th anniversary of the event hosted at City Park in Reading. Not only does this event promote community growth but also shows us examples of sustainability and just how valuable our environment is. With live music, entertainment and many exhibits, we are thankful to have been able to be a part of this event in our community. 

 

EARTH’S PROMISE: THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER ON OUR SIDE 💚

Jillian GappaBerks County Parks & Recreation Department

Hi everyone! We are Earth’s Promise!☀️🧿☮️🍄

Some info about us!

🍄 Eliyod Abiy is a first-year business major at Penn State Berks. His hobbies include watching sports, playing basketball, and being a car enthusiast.

☀️ Jillian Gappa is a first-year psychology major at Penn State Berks. Her hobbies include playing piano, thrifting, and swimming.

☮️ Emma Gaston is a first-year criminology student on a pre-law track at Penn State Berks. Her hobbies include listening to music and reading.

🧿 Colleen Klahr is a second-year Multidisciplinary Studies major at Penn State Berks. Her hobbies include doing theatre, reading (and re-reading), writing, and listening to music.

✨🌿 Come along as we promise to make the grass greener on our side! The 4 promises are Jillian, Emma, Colleen, and Eli. We joined Earth Day at Berks in creating an event that focused on raising environmental awareness in the Reading community! 🌿✨

☀️ 🧿 ☮️ 🍄

OUR RESEARCH / NARRATED PRESENTATION

For our research, we decided to explore the topic of light pollution! Light pollution is when there is excessive or misdirected artificial light.

While doing research, we found important information of the following subtopics: 

  • Causes and consequences of light pollution 
  • Possible solutions for solving the issue of light pollution 
  • Sustainable development goals related to light pollution

To find out more about light pollution and its effects, watch the video below! 

☀️ 🧿 ☮️ 🍄

OUR SERVICE

For the service component of the EACAP project, we collaborated with Bill Letvin of Earth Day at Berks. As part of the marketing committee, we helped out with planning the annual event that was held on April 20th. 

To find out more about our service, watch the video below!

☀️ 🧿 ☮️ 🍄

REFLECTION

Earth day at berks is a wonderful event that provides great information and incentives for people to keep the earth clean! Earth Day provided people with insight on what lies within our environment such as animals, traditions, sediments, etc. Light pollution was our topic for research and we shared with others what they can do individually to help light pollution on earth today, people found it very helpful and interesting! We were able to work with the marketing committee at Earth day so we created posters to entice people to come to earth day!

☀️ 🧿 ☮️ 🍄

Us at the symposium!

☀️ 🧿 ☮️ 🍄

The Forces of Nature Take Southwest Middle School by Storm!

Mackenzie FreyBerks County Parks & Recreation Department

Hello! We are The Forces of Nature, and our team includes three college students including Mackenzie Frey (Kenzie), Taylor Henn, and Mark Combs. Kenzie is a sophomore Elementary and Early Education major. Taylor is a freshman majoring in Elementary and Early Education. Mark is a sophomore majoring in Computational Statistics. 

Research: Bee Decline

For our research, we studied the global bee decline of both honeybees and bumblebees. When conducting this research we found that there is a significant decline in these insects throughout the world, having devastating effects on our environment today. Due to a number of parasites and diseases that compromise colonies, the overwhelming use of pesticides in agriculture, as well as the increase in pollution, bee populations have been jeopardized. Due to this decline, we discovered several apparent consequences. Because bees are significant pollinators, crops that rely on this cross-pollination are ultimately put at risk and would need to rely solely on wind. As a result of this, farmers may struggle and eventually go out of business if they lose these crops. To help fix this issue, individuals can plant bee gardens that would provide a safe place full of resources, use less pesticides in their farming practices, and support local beekeepers! 

Service Project: Southwest Middle School

On 3/17 we had our first meeting with Shana Holler. We mainly just got materials ready for when we first started. We also had a tour of the school and looked for a good area for the supplies so we could easily access it. Our second meeting was on 3/21, we did not meet with Shana but we did start our boxes. First, we sanded the boxes this way the paint would sink into the wood and give it a nice smooth finish. Then we started painting, our paint has a primer in it which will help the wood last longer against the elements. For the paint, we did two coats and started painting the inside of the box. We realized we needed a shovel because the dirt was so uneven. On 3/29 we went back to the school. We finished the inside of the boxes and began painting our third coat. By moving dirt away we could have an even amount of paint on all of the boards. While we waited for the paint to dry we started coming up with possible design choices, also teaching Mark how to paint grass. 4/20 This was our last day going to Southwest Middle School. We started by finishing our grass and adding flowers, bees, butterflies, and ladybugs. We spent two and a half hours on our last day spending time together and painting, but all fun things must come to an end and we said our goodbyes to the staff of Southwest Middle School. 

Group Reflection:

While doing this service project and after we completed it, all of us agreed that we felt a sense of fulfillment. By giving back to the Reading community and doing something for others, especially for a school that does not get as much funding as other school districts in the area, was especially fulfilling. Also, by creating these garden boxes for Southwest Middle School, we all felt as though we were a part of this community. We were welcomed with open arms by the teachers and faculty at the school, and we worked towards creating an outside space that would bring the students together and build that sense of community within them as well. Also, the project we did was very fun and allowed all of us to be as creative as we wanted to be. Painting the boxes was relaxing and brainstorming and creating the designs for the boxes was also very fun and exciting. This showed us that community service is something to look forward to. 

Thank you for reading! Below are videos of our research and an overview of our service project!

Research Video:

Service Video:

Marsh Madness EACAP

tpk5306Berks County Parks & Recreation Department

Marsh Madness Attacks Monster Invasive Species

Professor Kazempour-BiSci3 Spring 2022 Environmental-Awareness & Community Action Project

Introduction:

Our group is Marsh Madness and we are Zach Fuller, Yash Parikh, Ryan Curtiss, and Tommy Kalash. Tommy is in his sophomore year, he is majoring in accounting, and his favorite part about this experience was getting closer to nature reminding him of his childhood.

picture of us

Research:

Our research was about Invasive species and the struggles of managing national parks. The invasive species we focused on were Phragmites  (common reed), Callery pear tree, and the tree of heaven. All these are invasive meaning they have no natural predator since these plants are not in the habitat they were made for. Therefore these plants grow uncontrollably. The common reed grows on the banks of the water and survives even underwater. The Callery pear is invasive in the way it spread so quickly thanks to birds trying to eat the little pears and then rapidly spreading the seeds elsewhere. Then the tree of heaven is invasive because it grows and lanternflies (also invasive) eat the bark and leave a black, ash-looking residue that kills the trees to the roots. The roots can also then spread this disease to other trees putting them at risk.

The other topic we researched was on managing federal lands and national parks. This ranged from how natural disasters like erosion, wildfires and tropical storms damage the environment on those lands. There’s lots of negative human involvement that affects these parks that we may not realize. Some are climate change, pollution, depletion of natural resources, overcrowding, drilling, fracking, and negative policies that affect national parks.

picture of pamphlet

Service:

Our group Marsh Madness partnered up with Brianna a park ranger as part of our service component at the Blue Marsh National Recreation Area, to help them out by cataloging invasive species. Our cataloging consisted of us walking around the Blue Marsh area and finding the invasive species, taking pictures of them, and logging that into the database. The rangers then use this information and come up with an idea on how to get rid of or slow the invasive species. We as a team clocked in 8+ hours of community service and in that time learned a lot more than we thought we would.

pictures, service video

Reflection:

We got to really spend time outside isolated in nature, this made us explore the natural beauty of the environment. We all had a certain way of thinking when it came to parks and nature and it wasn’t really our priorities. We now realize that if not us then no one. We have to start taking care of it and not just ignoring the problems the national parks face every day.  It doesn’t take much to help, something as simple as throwing away your trash and being energy efficient can go a long way.

 

Thank you to Dr. Kazempour and Brianna for helping the group mature in our environmental awareness and forming a connection to nature.

How the G-Men stand up to illegal dumping

Aadithya SreeprakashBerks County Parks & Recreation Department

Our names are Dennis Morales, Jacob Sugrim, and Aadithya Sreeprakash and we are the G-Men for the BISC3 EACAP Project! Our name is inspired by the Marvel Comics superhero team The X-Men. Our project is focused in illegal dumping. For our project, we worked with Bethany Fisher in order to put a spotlight on illegal dumping.

What is illegal dumping?

Illegal dumping is when items are thrown in areas that are not designated for trashing nor recycling. Some examples are: throwing litter out of your car, throwing trash into an illegal landfill, and not throwing away waste.

Our Service

For our service, we made a comic using the Marvel Method. We used our team name as the name of a superhero group and used them to teach about illegal dumping.

This is the link for the video on our topic and comic: https://youtu.be/BtdciaerL_E

Reflection

We feel like by doing this project, we really learned a lot about illegal dumping and its effects on the environment. We wish we had more time so that our comic could be colored and have an extended ending.

Here is our Brochure:

 

The Lettuce Leagues Promotes Realistic Ways to be Sustainable

jre5367Berks County Parks & Recreation Department

Welcome to the Lettuce League, we are Jamie, Jocelyn, and Madie! We are all second-years and have a passion for helping our environment. Jamie is a Business Management major, Jocelyn is a Psychology major, and Madie is a Rehabilitation and Human Services major.

For our service project, we worked with Bethany Ayers-Fisher from the City of Reading’s Public Works: Sustainability and Solid Waste Department. We created public service announcements to spread awareness about the sustainability plan that they are trying to promote. We made 3 Instagram/Facebook posts in both English and Spanish along with a Tiktok. We have attached our posts to this post. Social Media Posts TikTok

Our research portion was the environmental impact that meat production has on the Earth. We found that 15-25% of our greenhouse emissions are caused by meat production practices. Our brochure goes into more detail about how changing our diets will decrease our environmental footprint. Future generations may look back at our era of food production and wonder how any of it was acceptable. Raising awareness and educating others is one of the most effective ways to create change.

Reflecting on the past few months, we have gained a greater understanding of how we are able to make a difference even in the smallest of ways. Even just by shifting one meal away from a typically meat-based entrée, we are lessening our personal effect on the Earth. We appreciate the opportunity given to us to be more involved in our community. Whether it is by creating PSA’s, as we did, or by volunteering to clean up trash, we are thankful that this plan was brought to our attention. One thing that we want to leave the public with, is to stay open-minded to different ideas and plans. It may seem out of the ordinary, but the positive ramifications may outweigh the difficult transitional period. Service Video

Green Mamba in particular time

Yaoxing JiangBerks County Parks & Recreation Department

Hello Everyone.

Because of this particular time, our group Green Mamba can’t meet together to have communication. However, this can’t stop us to talk to each other. By constantly searching on the Internet and online communication we know a lot of information about deforestation. Through this part of the time, we consulted many online materials and academic articles and learn some knowledge about the causes and consequences of deforestation. And how can we solve those problems. During the presentation, we can let everybody know the present situation of deforestation in the United States. Include the various causes and solutions for this situation. In this PPT, we hope that we can truly value the consequences of deforestation. And then hopefully more people will come together to solve the problem and bring a better environment to Earth. Welcome to our PowerPoint presentation. I believe you can learn many pieces of knowledge about deforestation. Beyond that, we have created a research paper to let you learn more specifically about deforestation. We will also have a post about the research paper.

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