Category Archives: Glenside School

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EJKK Climate Blessing

  By ecg5307 • April 29, 2022 , , ,

EJKK Climate Blessing

EJKK Climate Blessing is a team consisting of four Penn State students: Ebony Grant, Jennifer Honorat, Krista Wickel, and Kirubel Asnake.  Pictured above (from left to right) are Krista, Ebony, and Jennifer.

Research Component 

Nature Deficiency 

For our EACAP project, we focused on researching the topic of Nature Deficiency. Nature Deficiency describes how people especially children are spending less time surrounded by nature.  Nature-Deficit Disorder coined by Richard Louv describes the widespread epidemic of inactivity as increasingly more children spend less time outside.   This has led to a wide range of behavioral problems. This is widespread due to an “epidemic of inactivity” as children become increasingly disconnected from the environment. 

Service Component  

For our service project, we worked with the Glenside Elementary school. We had created posters for the 4th-grade classrooms about the life cycle of a plant, the parts of the plant, and how to care for a plant. Ebony also planted 14 marigolds for each classroom. Ebony and Krista presented the posters to a 4th-grade classroom through zoom, for them to present to the other classes. Our main goal was to educate the children about the life cycle of plants. 

 

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Team Green Thumb Clean Up

  By djm7423 • April 27, 2022 , , ,

 

Team Introduction

We are the Green Team, we are three Penn State Berks students in Environmental Science. Our project was located at glenside elementary school. We worked outside of the school on the gardens and flower beds. Our main goal was to clean up all of the trash and dead plants, and then plant new flowers for the school. We wanted to make sure that the school had a nice look on the outside for when they reopen it after the construction was done. Our group members were Ethan (Left ), a freshman majoring in Business. Scott (Middle) a freshman majoring in education. Dalton (Right) a freshman majoring in finance. Together the green team is looking to improve the earth one step at a time.

 

Green Team Service

For our service project, we assisted in the transformation of Glenside Elementary School. In order to get an idea of how we could help, we first met with Mrs. Fisher toured the property with a focus on how we could improve the landscaping. We looked at the flowerbeds, garden area, and looked to restore the scenery around a previously painted memorial. With Dalton’s previous experience working as a landscaper, we were able to identify what needed to be done in order to get started. Once we began, we realized this project was going to be more work than we thought. Over the winter, the harsh conditions stripped away any previous greenery, and months of a lack of maintenance led to a trash buildup which needed to be taken care of. We pulled weeds and trimmed back the remains of dead bushes. We raked out the garden area and tried to clean it up the best we could. We ended up collecting a lot of trash that was more than likely caused by the construction going on at the school. We improved the garden by planting flowers out by the front of the school. The school was nice enough to buy us the flowers and supplies we needed for this project. They purchased around 32 pansies for us to use.  They also allowed us access to the tools and garden equipment in their shed which was greatly appreciated. Over all the project went really well and we are very thankful that the school helped us out a provided the supplies we needed. 

 

Secondary Research Conducted

Our group performed research on the effects of nuclear fall out. Although our research did not have a lot to do with our actual project it was still very interesting to learn. We researched in general what fallout is and found that it is the radioactive particles that are in the earth’s atmosphere and on the earth’s surface after the explosion. The effects that this radiation can cause on the environment as well as the life in it is devastating. The effects to humans include radiation sickness and burns which can kill in a short period of time. The main longer lasting effect is a major increased risk of cancer. There are two main causes of fallout that can occur. This includes the detonation of a nuclear weapon or a nuclear reactor meltdown. The world saw examples of each of these and how its effects were felt for years after. In August of 1945, two nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those two bombs alone killed almost 200,000 people, now that technology has increased since then there is no telling how much worse it would be now. We also saw what happens when a power plant melts down. In April of 1986 a power plant called Chernobyl in Ukraine melted down. Many people died from the explosion but many more were killed by the effects that the radiation had on the first responders who were attempting to put out the fire. A large area surrounding the melted down plant is still deemed uninhabitable to this day. Overall we learned how dangerous nuclear fall out is and that it should be prevented at all costs.

Service video

Brochure

 

Team reflection

Our group was very appreciative for the opportunity that Dr Kazempour and Mrs Fisher presented us with. It was nice to have this opportunity to give back to the community that we live in and make up for the stress we put on our environment. Overall the project was very fun and we were happy to get the type of project that fitted us best. We all enjoyed being in the outdoors and putting in some physical work which made the project very enjoyable. We all learned a lot and were happy to give back while learning as well.

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How the Environmental Buds Helped Inform Glenside Students About Plant Care!

  By jmo5811 • April 21, 2022 , ,

Our ECAP team decided to focus in on pollution of plastic.  We choose this project in hopes to help get the students excited about new plants in their classroom and to inform them about the affects of plastic on the earth.  We worked with Glenside Elementary School to achieve our goals.  We began by collecting empty bottles, cans, and other reusable goods.  Once we sorted though and found what we thought would be best, we decorated them to make them more appealing.

We planted our flowers in the new pots.

Along with the service of actually making and planting the flowers, the Environmental Buds also conducted research about the negative affects pollution has on the planet and how we can reduce waste and live in a more environmental friendly way.  This work was really important to our ECAP team because pollution it is a pressing issue in the world and it is so important to learn and spread awareness about it.  Going into the classroom with children and talking to them was a great way to do this.

We enjoyed being able to go into all 5 classrooms at Glenside Elementary and teaching the children more about how to be environmentally friendly in a fun way! They really enjoyed and plants and were so thankful for them. It is very important to keep our youth informed and aware of growing issues such as pollution.

Glenside Elementary Service Video 2

 

 

Brochure:

 

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The Evergreens Spreading the Younger Generation’s Wings

  By ses6488 • April 4, 2022 , ,

The Evergreens Team Introduction

We are The Evergreens, a team consisting of four Penn State Berks students working together to inform the young of the importance of butterflies.  The Evergreens team members include (left to right): Kenisha Brown, Kevin Harris, Chloe Remaly, and Samantha Stehn.  Kenisha is a first year student majoring in Communication Arts & Sciences, Kevin is a first year student majoring in journalism, Chloe is a first year student majoring in early childhood education, and Samantha is a first year student majoring in public policy.  Together The Evergreens are working to spread awareness about the importance of the world’s butterfly population.

Spreading Wings of Knowledge

For our service project, we assisted in putting together The Very Hungry Caterpillar event at Glenside Elementary School.  Our team created crafts, games, read a book, and played a movie to inform the younger students on the lifecycle of a butterfly and emphasize their importance to our environment.  We brought the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle to life for the younger kids.  Kenisha and Kevin provided an audio visual presentation to the children on the lifecycle of a butterfly and the journy that the Very Hungry Caterpillar experienced.  Chloe read aloud the book to the students and answered questions on how a caterpillar is capable of growing.  Samantha face painted on the kids images of the caterpillar and butterfly that were featured in the book and presentation.  Together our team decorated Glenside Elementary School’s hallways so that the children could quite literally walk through the lifecycle of a caterpillar.  By the end of the event, Glenside Elementary’s students had new well earned knowledge on the biological-clock of a caterpillar.  The Evergreens spread the student’s wings by relating a fiction picture book to their everyday lives.  With all of the decorations, crafts, and games made by our team being recycled by the school for the repetition of the same event in upcoming years, The Evergreens are content in our contribution to the passing down of butterfly and caterpillar awareness to future pupils.

Click the picture above to watch our service video!

Save The Butterflies

For our research portion of the EACAP project, we looked into the decline of butterflies across the world with a focus on monarchs.  In the past 20 years the monarch butterfly population has dropped over 80% nationwide.  Experts approximate that in the upcoming 20 years there is a 60% chance of of monarchs migration collapsing completely.  However, it is not only monarchs that we are worried about; 450 different species of butterflies are rapidly declinig across the world.  These beautiful creatures are threatened by landscaping, industrialization, pesticides, urban development, and most importantly: climate change.  Unusual climates have forced monarchs to migrate differently than their normal path disrupting their routines.  Warmer fall months are especially dangerous when it comes to monarch butterflies.  The loss of biodiversity is another major factor that is leading to butterfly extinction.  If butterflies were to go extinct, it would pose a substantial threat to terrestrial ecosystems worldwide.  Not only would we lose an important connector in a thriving web ecosystem, but also plants would lose their resilience to diseases.  Butterflies are major pollinators, when they travel from plant to plant they are spreading pollen from groups of plants far away from each other.  In doing so, plants get exposed to potential diseases and threats and are able to build resistance against harm.  A loss of pollinators to keep the environment going would result in a drop of plants ability to reproduce.  Thousands of plant species would rapidly decline in population worldwide.  The Evergreens are hoping to raise awareness towards this rising issue.  We hope that as their importance becomes clear, key stakeholders will look towards conserving our butterflies.  The creation of nature areas and protected areas dedicated towards butterflies are being done by The National Wildlife Federation.  They are restoring monarchs habitats and encouraging surrounding communities to grow native plants for the monarchs to feed off of.  If you are in the area of the monarch’s migration path, look into planting milkweed given that it is their favorite.  The National Wildlife Federation made a Mayor’s Monarch Pledge through a tri-national initiative with The United States, Mexico, and Canada to take action and set policies for the protection of our monarch butterflies.  The Evergreens gained newfound knowledge on our beloved butterflies, and we hope that you did as well.

 

The Evergreens Brochure

The Evergreens Fly Away

Our team is indubitably grateful for the opportunity provided to raise awareness on this crucial subject.  We would like to thank Dr. Kazempour, faculty of Glenside Elementary, and all of you for following along on our journey to help save the butterflies.  Our team can agree that it was fully heartwarming to not only further our knowledge, but also those of the surrounding communities.  A few final words from The Evergreens team members:

“I am very grateful to have been given the chance to spread awareness on such a time sensitive issue to such a broad audience.  I feel as if our team truly made an impact, granted how small we are, because of how many different people of all ages and occupations we got to talk to.”- Samantha Stehn 

“When the EACAP project was first talked about at the beginning of the semester I steeled myself for a months long process of grueling work. What actually followed turned out to be an enoyable endeavor in which I made new friends, developed in-depth environmental awareness, and got to serve my community and the planet as an inhabitant of planet earth.” –Kevin Harris 

“I am incredibly appreciative of all that I have learned from taking environmental science with Dr. Kazempour. I have learned so much from not only the class, but also the EACAP project that was assigned. Influencing and teaching the younger generation about current issues facing the world globally was very thrilling and captivating. “- Kenisha Brown

“Dr. Kazempour’s class introduced me to a lot of concepts I probably never would have looked at if it had not of been for her enviomental science class. She introduced me to a lot of things going on the world I am now actually paying attention to. The EACAP project did the same thing as well, it introduced me to new people, experiences and overall a good time over the course of this semester.” – Chloe Remaly

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HWMR Making the Environment Better One Day at a Time!

  By Mason Fontana • November 30, 2021 , , , ,

Introduction we are HWMR Environmental

HWMR Environmental is a collaborative ground consisting of Mason Fontana, Hassan Koroma, Robert Yeaney, and Wyatt Zeigler. Our project consisted of two viewpoints of pollution that negatively affects our environment. Specifically, we will be discussing E-Waste pollution and Non-point Source Pollution. E-Waste comprises technological devices such as cell phones, computers, microwaves, and more that are disposed of inappropriately in our environment. Non-point source pollution is pollution that does not come from a single source such as a pipe and comes from multiple sources including precipitation, smokestacks, pesticides, motor oil, and many more man-made/human-made products and public disposal.

Research Component 

Electronic-Waste (E-Waste)

Electronic Waste also known as E-Waste is the discarding of any device or high tech products such as a smartphone or a computer. These devices are made out of substances that are toxic to the environment, for example most contain lead or flame retardants. Substances such as these being released into the environment are not a good thing especially because in recent years E-Waste rates have increased dramatically. Roughly about 80% of  these devices ends up in dumps or landfills which raises it’s own health risks. Only 20 percent of the e-waste generated was documented as collected and properly recycled. China, Ghana, India, and Nigeria are among the countries that have become major destinations for e-waste shipments, both legal and illegal. The high tech devices contain very valuable metals that can be repurposed and reused but this can be a very difficult process causing the recycling rates to be below standards. If we cannot control these rising rates or find a solution to combat the E-Waste issue we could become a global problem. In 2019, PACE and the WEF publish a report predicting that by 2050 some 120 million tonnes (132.3 million tons) of e-waste will be generated annually.

For our topic of E-Waste we conducted lots of research regarding the background, history, statistics, causes, consequences, and solutions to combat this issue. Then with our research we created a PowerPoint which captures all of our research as well as important things having to deal with E-Waste. We then had to present this in front of our peers and professor at Penn State Berks for roughly 12 minutes. The PowerPoint also contains information about our service component Non-Point Source pollution which we used our research and worksheets to help create.  (below our PowerPoint is attached)

Also for our topic of E-Waste we created a brochure as sort of a brief overview of what Non-Source Pollution is. We wanted to create it in a way so it wasn’t a lot of information coming at you at once instead we made it so it was to the point and detailed. Our goal with this was that if someone was to pick this up they would learn something from it and be able to retain the knowledge from it since it wasn’t clustered with information. In the brochure we used our research we conducted and divided it into headings such as the causes, consequences, solutions, and sustainable development goals. (attached below)

PowerPoint:

EACAP Presentation

Brochure:

 

 

Electronic Waste Brochure-combined

Service Component 

Non-Point Source Pollution

 

 

 

 

Non-Point Source can be identified as land runoff , precipitation, atmospheric deposition, drainage, seepage or hydrologic modification. Some examples of this can be fertilizers, oil, grease, salt from irrigation, acid drainage, or Bacteria and nutrients from livestock, pet waste, septic systems. How does Non-Source Pollution occur? Well this can happen from a number of different ways or reasons for example some are agriculture, forestry, mining, marine, industry, and urban environment. Agriculture causes can range from pesticides, fertilizers, or the improper clean up of animal waste. Forestry non-source causes can be excessive cutting down of tree’s or improper use of chemicals or equipment. When it comes to mining this occurs from abandoned mine shafts that were used for metal extraction or acid drainage. For Marine this type is the dumping of pollutants into oceans, lakes, or rivers or not properly cleaning boats in the designated areas. In Industry, this happens when the burning of coal exposes chemicals or materials are dumped into places or areas they should not. Lastly Urban Environment, can be the irresponsible disposal of things such as motor oil or antifreeze as well as debris in the streets. Non-Point Source Pollution can play a major role in effecting our environment all over the world, it is crucial that we have things put in place to combat these issues. In the United States we have the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act that help and continue to aid in limiting non-point source pollution. Due to these two types of legislative acts that have been in effect for roughly 50 years America’s air as well as water are cleaner today than they were for the majority of the 20th Century. 

For our topic of Non-Point Source Pollution we did about 8 hours community service for the Schuylkill River National Heritage Area’s students in which we created several worksheets regarding our topic. We had conducted research to find information to put inside/create these worksheets that would encapsulate the most important things about Non-Point Source Pollution. These worksheets ranged from crossword puzzle, fill in the blank, word scramble, and true and false. We also created informational flyers to go along with the worksheets as well as to help students with them and so they can learn in a fun interesting way. There was an answer key we created to go along with every worksheet so their teacher knows the answers if they cannot figure it out. (attached below)

Worksheets:

Service Worksheets

Service Video:

IMG 12852 – YouTube

 

Project’s Goals

Our main goal of this project was to learn more about the environment and most importantly learn what is it specifically that is hurting/causing damage to the environment. We also wanted to then be able to take that and show to the younger generation (the kids we did worksheets for) that we need to preserve and keep the environment clean. We think it’s very vital that the younger generation is aware of how people and things interact with the environment whether that’s good or bad.

Reflection 

 

 

 

 

After doing this project I have to say that we are very happy that we did this. We went into this thinking it was going to be an ordinary project that we get just for any class but it was far from that. This project we completely took a hold of and made it our own and enjoyed doing it that way. We honestly did not know much before but now you could almost consider us experts on these topics! Looking at all of the time and effort we put into this we are without a question glad that we did it and took this class in order to get the chance to be a part of something like this. Most people do not know much about the environment and that was our crucial decision in deciding to make worksheets for kids and making it fun as well as interactive. It all starts with the younger generation and we never understood that until we did this project. We all want to be here for as long as we possibly can be but it has to start with our environment and playing our roles so play yours!

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Our product about the service

  By Yin Zhang • April 24, 2020 , , ,

After the meeting, we spent much time deciding what our product is. We needed to consider that this product should conclude a country’s culture and environmental science. We searched a lot of contries different culture and the product’s materials could be recycle. Finally, we dicided to do lamps ( or we can call lantern) which is used in Chinese New Year, and we can make lanterns by using waste products, such as waste bottles. In March, we picked some materials on the Internet. Children can use every waste thing to decorate their own lamps.

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BWB’s guide to an exciting Science Night activity in Glenside Elementary School

  By Yin Zhang • April 24, 2020 , , ,

Our group met the activity holder to discusse about what we gonna do during the so called Science Night activity. She told us to have an activity concerning science, Fiesta, and bring celebration across cluture science into it. Therefore, my group made a decision to make lamps with those little kids in the Glenside School. We will let children to draw whatever they want on the lamps, and we will tutor and help them to finish it. And for the material, we will have plastic bottle to make lamps. Plastic can be recycle, and everybody should consume them and they can keep it whne they come to the Science Night to make their own lamps.

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Our Presentation is Complete

  By ksm5603 • April 20, 2020 , , ,

Good afternoon everyone!

We have some good news about our EACAP Project. Today we have completed our presentation and just need a few final touches on our research report. We will turn it in soon (:

On another note, although we didn’t finish our community service project I had to do something with all the water bottles we collected for our chandelier! Check it out.

What I loosely followed vs. My results

Materials needed: Candle, Plastic water bottle, scissors, paint, hot glue gun

30 Easy DIY Plastic Bottle Projects

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Our Research is Almost Complete!

  By ksm5603 • April 17, 2020 , ,

During quarantine, we have continued to research our topic of habitat destruction. Working together we have split up the research components and will come together tomorrow to put it all together into our essay. Tomorrow is a big day for our progress in the EACAP project! After this, we can begin our presentation! Have a nice day everyone.

A fun fact for the day:

Habitat destruction is when a habitat can no longer sustain its resources to keep its community of animals alive. This can occur because of us cutting down trees, building developments or even naturally from wildfires.

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The Mambas still got this in the bag!

  By kxc5630 • March 31, 2020 , , ,

We had a zoom meeting today and helped each other out with our research report and PowerPoint! We discussed what we should discuss in our research report and PowerPoint. We miss working with each other in person! #thisvirusgotttaaagoooo!

“The moment you give up is the moment you let someone else win.” -Kobe Bryant

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