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Category Archives: Projects
GREEN BEANS TO THE RESCURE OF THE ENVIRONMENT!!!
The Green Beans
ABOUT US
Matias – Born in Puerto Rico, but raised in Lima, Peru, I am a sophomore at Penn State Berks majoring in Management.
Joey – I am from Long Island, New York, and I am in my sophomore year at Penn State Berks, majoring in Supply chain management.
Tifany – Originally from Long Island, NY, but moved to PA four years ago. I am a sophomore at Penn State Berks and majoring in Business. Team Liaison.
Pedro – Born in the Dominican Republic, but have lived in PA for 10+ years. I am a junior at Penn State Berks majoring in Criminal Justice.
Research/Narrated Presentation
Our team has been dedicated to the research of microplastics and pollution in the water. We focused on the main causes of this issue, as well as the consequences on the environment that it had. Lastly, solutions were proposed in order to tackle this problem and hopefully build a healthier environment and water.
In addition, we found out that our topic and focused research involved the following Sustainable Development Goals:
- 3 Good Health and Well-Being
- 6 Clean Water and Sanitation
- 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
- 12 Responsible Consumption and Production
- 14 Life Below Water
Service
The Green Beans worked alongside Berks Nature to help the environment in every way possible. We first went and planted trees in the Cacoosing Creek. Later, we did some water quality testing in the Rock Hollow Woods, where we tested the water’s pH, nitrogen, and minerals. We found out that the water had a great quality and that was one of the main reasons why we saw marine life and organisms living around the area.
Reflection
We are grateful to work alongside Berks Nature to try and solve this problem that is affecting us in many different ways. Even though we’ve done our part for just four months, we still recognize that there is a lot to be done. We encourage everyone to try and help us to eradicate the issue of microplastics and pollution in water. It was really an eye-opening experience for the Green Beans and we’ve promised ourselves to not stop here because more work needs to be done, and we will continue to do so until we’ve made a significant change.
Team Anti-Pollution Creates a Berks Nature Video!
Hello everyone, we are Team Anti-Pollution!
Left to Right: Sophia, Andrew, Jason, Cullen
Introduction
Our team members are Sophia, a senior majoring in Elementary and Childhood Education; Cullen, a sophomore majoring in Marketing; Jason, and Andrew.
We are all very passionate about conservation and wanted to take the opportunity to educate others about environmental stewardship, so we jumped at the opportunity to work with Berks Nature to produce some insightful videos and slides for their half-decade assessment of the environmental health within Berks County.
Research Component
Deforestation applies to SDG 1, 9, 12, 13, and 15
For our research project, we chose to investigate deforestation. We explored many aspects of the issue such as where deforestation occurs, its roots that lie in increasing consumerism, its perpetration by foreign businesses, and what we can do as citizens to help reduce or eliminate the increasingly common problem.
To learn more, click the image below:
Service Component
As mentioned previously, we had the privilege of working with Berks Nature to create pieces of media to inform the citizens of Berks County about responsible personal vehicle use and provide information about public transportation options for those that felt inspired or convinced to curb their own personal vehicle use. These videos followed the findings of Berks Nature’s “State of the Environment” report that revealed Berks residents utilize public transportation resources less than other PA counties.
To view our video, click the image below!
To view our interview with a representative of Commuter PA and learn more about the services they provide, click the image below!
Reflection
Overall, our EACAP Project was a very enriching and educational experience for our team. It was such a gratifying opportunity to be able to put something out into the community that has the chance to make a material difference in Berks’ environmental health. Additionally, we learned a lot about the resources available to the public that promote green or public transportation, the dangers and consequences of excessive consumption, as well as learning how to maintain relations with entities and people outside of the school community and the positive impacts that volunteering time in a community can have. We had such a great time working with our organization and on our research this fall, but we wouldn’t want our efforts to go to waste. That’s why Team Anti-Pollution encourages you to forgo convenience for an upcoming trip and consider trying public transportation, or if you value the privacy and convenience of operating your own vehicle, try biking to cover short distances or organize carpools with others traveling to the same location!
Progress Pictures
Team Keepin’ It Clean Keeps Reading Clean!
Team Members (From Left to Right)
Emily Rivera – 1st year – Business Marketing
Madeline Leib – 2nd year – Marketing
Madelyn Sofranko – 1st year – Business Management
Mackenzie Sikora – 1st year – Elementary and Early Education
We all attend Penn State Berks! We are!
Our team is researching farm pollution of manmade farms and how using pesticides or other weed killers affect the water in surrounding areas. More specifically, we are researching how the natural-running water that we filter to drink is affected before, during, and after the process of filtering from freshwater to bottled water. Our goal is to educate ourselves on the importance of understanding how groundwater pollution affects our drinking water, and learn ways how we can work towards improving water quality one step and a time!
For our service project, we are helping a local middle school – The Northeast Middle School in Reading, PA – fix up their learning garden as well as helping their environmental club increase their awareness about local and global environmental issues. One of our activities with the students was creating a bat cave using scratch paper as they colored in stencils of bats. Another was a presentation about the process of photosynthesis. The students then planted seeds in little cups, and they will see them grow as time goes on!
Above are three photos from the presentation that a representative from the Pennsylvania Bat Rescue located in Reading, PA, gave to the students about their program and the importance of bats in our environment. They provide rehabilitation, care, and education for the conservation of the bat species. Keeping sufficient biodiversity is another important topic that everyone should be educated about, even children!
The middle photo above is a photo of us giving our presentation about the process of photosynthesis to the students. The others are photos of the students with their plants from our plant activity. We got natural soil without fertilizers or other harmful pesticides and allowed them to plant their own seeds and water their plants. We also took one home to track their progress.
This is a photo of the plant we took home, and what their plants should look like now!Below is are links to our research presentation and service video. If you’d like to learn more about our research on groundwater pollution, give it a look!
Research Presentation:
Service Video:
Reflection:
Overall, this was a fantastic experience. We have a much better understanding of how our drinking water affects our lives. If our drinking water is contaminated, we won’t have any clean water to drink which will eventually lead to our downfall. Working with the students was an amazing opportunity and we learned a lot from the bat presentation. We were glad to see a bat in real life as well! We learned so much about how students view pollution and biodiversity as issues. Most of them didn’t even know what groundwater pollution was! The main thing that we concluded from this experience was that we need to conserve our drinking water as much as possible and farms need to refrain from using disastrous pesticides and fertilizers to grow their plants. We are very grateful to have had this opportunity to work together to educate ourselves about an incredibly important environmental and ecological issue.
Memphis Greens: Deforestation and Habitat Loss Prevention Agency
Introduction
Hey everyone! We are the Memphis Greens. Our group teamed up with Dr Kazempour with the Campus Garden Ceremony in order to inform students about the importance of the garden to the environment. We are all excited to work together as a team with Dr Kazempour’s organization in order to help to protect the environment.
Team Bios:
Hey, my name is Tyler, and I am the contact person of our group. I help to organize all of our teams’ events to help the environment by preventing deforestation which also help prevent habitat loss for many animal species that live in the forests. An interesting fact about me is that I love to cook.
Hi, my name is Conner and I’m currently a sophomore at Penn State Berks. My role for the ECAP project consists of preparation of our meetings and just helping out with anything that needs to be resolved when we get stuck. I’m extremely excited to get out there and make something for a good cause!
Hi, my name is Diogo. I’m a second-year marketing major at Penn State Berks. I like sports like soccer, basketball, and horror movies.
Hey, My name is Chris and I’m a second year Hospitality Management Major At Penn State Berks, and I’ll be moving to University Park in the fall. My role for our project is in our preparation and being flexible to do anything that is needed. I’m excited to make a difference in my last project here at Berks.
Research
The research that our group conducted allowed us to gain more information about how severe the problem of deforestation is around the world. We found that deforestation plays a significant role with the problem of habitat loss due to the trees that are being cut down causing the habitat for animals to become unstable. Through our research, we created a presentation that will inform listeners about the seriousness of the problem and how we can solve the problem of deforestation and habitat loss over time.
*Click on our link to get more information about the research and service action of our environmental group
Service
For our groups service portion of our project, we worked with Dr Kazempour with her campus project of the implementation of the campus garden. We constructed posters and flyers that gave insightful information to students that talked about the importance of the garden and how it can help students by providing fresh foods and it can provide more oxygen in the air. We also informed students about how the garden can provide food for animals that live in the forests around campus in order to help them maintain a sustainable habitat. We also helped with the green house that is right by campus by pulling weeds and among other things. This was all organized by John Rost in order to help take care of the plants and trees that are being disrupted by weeds.
Reflection
Our team was honored to be given the opportunity to work with Dr Kazempour’s Sustainability Council in order to help with supporting and preparing the Campus Garden Ceremony. The event helped with gaining research about our topic of deforestation and habitat loss, while also being able to help the environment in a positive way by providing information to students on campus about the garden during the event. Our team worked hard to construct posters and flyers and over time working together we became good friends and enjoyed our opportunity to help the environment. In the next couple of months, we will start to see the campus garden blooming with fruits and vegetables which will reward us for doing our part to make the campus garden happen.
Poster Session
WEDGE’s Water Pollution
Ethan Wong, Joe Conti, Wellinson Fernandez, David Nigri
We researched the water pollution problem across the globe. This has been happening since human civilization started, and includes problems like runoff, waste dumpings, pollutants, etc. The consequences of this behavior includes disease, destruction of biodiversity, contamination of the food chain, and more. Possible solutions include more regulations on improper waste disposal from households and companies, and more political pressure for environmental change. Some SDG’s include integrated water resources management at all levels, universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water, and improving water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimizing release of hazardous chemicals
Our group covered the water pollution problem we are facing, and went to different sites across Reading to test our local waterways to assess our water quality. We researched basic water parameters, such as conductivity, pH, salinity, etc, and the hardiness of the water using macroinvertebrate populations in the water. This gave us an idea of how our waterways are doing, and if there are any concerning signs.
We got a much greater appreciation of what it takes to keep our waters clean, and how much everyone works to monitor our waterways. The research showed us that water pollution has been a real problem for almost all of humanity, and the need to clean up our waters and get accessible water for everyone should be our top priority. There are many solutions we can pursue, such as stricter regulations and more awareness campaigns nationwide, which will hopefully allow us to safeguard all our waterways. Our service hours showed us the work and impact of testing local waterways, such as the ones in Reading, and how this gets added up to a national database so we can observe patterns and track any sort of pollution in our waters. The work the researchers do, mostly as volunteer, is interesting and hard work that is usually conducted monthly and incredibly insightful. Our message for other youths or individuals is to try and take a more active role in our environment, whether that is raising awareness, testing our waterways, or simply disposing of their wastes properly so it doesn’t end up in local waterways. Even the smallest contributions add up if we all do it as a society.
TEAM PICKLES ON KEEPING WATER CLEAN
Hello! Welcome to our team Pickles ECAP project! 
Our Group Members Include: Alex Turley, Bel Clayton, and Clarisse Batista
Alex: Hey! welcome to our project I am a first year here at Penn State Berks and I am a business major. I am looking forward to continuing to help our environment in the future. I think it is important to make sure that the world is healthy for future generations.
Bel: Hello! I am also a first year here at Berks, and currently taking Environmental Science with my teammates. We are currently researching water pollution and working at Blue Marsh Lakes to clean the shorelines. This class has been great with awesome learning experiences.
Clarisse: Hey! Just like Bel and Alex I am also a first year at Berks, our project has been so amazing as well as the class. We are learning so much about our environment and how to give back to the community by doing some cleaning on the shoreline and roadsides.
What is the issue?
There are many environmental issues in our day and time. The issue that we chose to research was ocean and shoreline plastics. With our high usage of plastics, it often gets disposed of in ways that it shouldn’t. Once the plastics get in the waterways, they always find a way to the ocean. This is a huge issue in today’s society. Plastic causes so much harm to the marine life, humans, and our world as a whole. Something has to be done to combat this terrible issue. Check out the narrated presentation below for more details on the issue and for some solutions to the issue.
Narrated Presentation
Our Service
This terrible issue inspired us, Team Pickles, to do something about it. For our service hours we chose to do shoreline clean ups at Blue Marsh Lake which is very close to campus. During our 8 hours of service, we picked up a total of 200+ pounds of trash. We found all this trash either on the roads near the lake, on the woods around the lake, or on the shoreline of the lake. The trash ranged from plastics, to cans, to glass bottles, and so much more. This service inspired us to do more for our environment and encourage other to do the same. It feels good to have a healthy, safe, and clean environment especially knowing that you did something to help.
Here is a little infographic about our service:
Service Video
Poster board Presentation
Reflection
We all really enjoyed this project. This was a very cool and creative twist on a college class. Although there were no tests or quizzes in this course, we feel like we learned so much about the environment and even go to apply what we learned in awesome and engaging way through the ECAP project and service. This is easily one of the best classes we have taken, and we think that future generations will also enjoy this service project. Because of this class and project, we have developed a love for the protection and awareness of the ocean and marine life that will continue for the rest of our lives. We really want to encourage others and especially the youth to go out there and better this planet, and most importantly have fun while doing it.
Green Lock meets Earth Day to “lock” residents from Reading!
Welcome, we are team Green Lock! Our team consists of Alan Manuel, Lin Wai, Chenyang Wang, and Michelle Pham. The inspiration for our team name is based on the anime, Blue Lock. We are here to find the Reading’s next climate activist that’s going to change the world!
Team member introduction
Alan Manuel: My name is Alan, majoring in Information Science and Technology(IST). My favorite hobbies are singing, writing and listening to music.
Michelle Pham: My name is Michelle, majoring in Psychology. My favorite hobbies are dancing and listening to music.
Lin Phyo: My name is Lin, majoring in Finance. I enjoy playing poker & pool.
Chenyang Wang: My Name is Chenyang, My major is Cybersecurity. My favorite hobbies are reading online Chinese novels, and I also like to play ping pong and badminton.
Left to right: Michelle, Chenyang, Brandon (our guide on our service), Alan, Lin
Research Description
Our research project focused on the general overview of how environmental issues such as air pollution and global warming affect public health. We wanted to research this topic in order to expose the exact ways human lives can be harmed due to environmental issues. We looked at the history of the ways public health has been affected by environmental issues and researched methods that could become possible solutions for them.
Service Description
Our service project is based on the marketing and promotion of Earth Day Berks. An example we had done is a round table discussion on sustainability and how people can contribute in small ways to protect the environment. Most of our efforts were focused on marketing (i.e. flyers and social media). We worked with the Earth Day Committee to establish our roles within the group as well as discuss how we should market Earth Day to the public. We’ve also helped during the Earth Day event by setting up/assisting the exhibit tables, controlling traffic, etc.
More pictures of the event can be found HERE!
Here is the link to Alan’s TV interview about Earth Day and the Great American Cleanup:
Our team’s service video can be found HERE!
Reflection
Initially, it was a little daunting at first with the amount of work that we felt was about to go into promoting this event as well as learning new ways to protect our environment. Communication was key during this period since we all had to respect each other’s deadlines as well as ensure everyone is having fun and contributing to achieving this goal we had set out for. We learned how to use Canva and design posters during this process, which was an enriching experience. We were able to release our creative freedom in making these posters which motivated us to further spread our message about sustainability through our posters. Most importantly, we got to build closer friendships through this activity and lifelong memories to look back on.
Global Warming
Introduction!
Greetings! We are team Tree Huggers and our main goal is to make a positive impact on our economy regarding the problem in today’s world. This being said our main topic of research was Global Warming. Our group will be hard working while volunteering for the organization Blue Marsh Lake and helping them out with helping the economy. Our team members are Gavin Dai, Johan Colorado, Jaden Duron, and last but not least Alex Chamorro.
EACAP Service Narrated Presentation
Regarding our Narrated presentation, The Tree Huggers talked about our service and time at Blue Marsh Lake doing trash cleanups. Click the link below to view our Narrated Presentation!
Research Presentation
Below can be found our research presentation where we talk about the topic we chose which was global warming, Enjoy the video!
Service Description
First our group, The Tree Huggers! We were asked to go on the tour with the Blue Marsh Park Ranger who is Brianna Treichler. We arrived at the park, We parked our car in the parking lot and we talked in her office for around 30 minutes. She then proceeded to take us on a tour around the Dam and talked with us about the park. It was very beautiful and very interesting. She also showed us the different locations where we could clean up and go as a group. The tour lasted around an hour and a half, we saw some beautiful locations, and all of them were right by the dam! We ended up going later that week where we completed a couple of hours of service and we cleaned up a total of one whole trash bag. The locations where we went to first didn’t have as much trash but we still worked patiently and as a team. We were very motivated to get start getting more trash picked up and fill up more bags, and that is what we did. Once we were done with the trash we would send Brianna (Park ranger) our location and the park rangers will pick up the trash and log it in the records. We all had fun at the Blue Marsh and would like to come back to see the beautiful scenery and the fun memories the park has to offer.
Poster session
Reflection
We the Tree Huggers, chose to work at the Blue Marsh Lake relating to the topic we chose which is Global Warming. First, to reflect on our experience, we all enjoyed our time at Blue Marsh Lake. We laughed, we talked and we bonded as a team. Our time at Blue Marsh was amazing! While we were enjoying our time there, we were also picking up trash around the dam and making the environment cleaned. We picked up a variety of objects varying from Beer bottles, tires, plastic bags, Bags of chips, and objects like that. We completed service for a total of 8 hours. We also stumbled upon a water snake tangled up with the fishing line near its home. We were all scared because it was a snake after all but we wanted to help it out so we carefully removed the fishing and slowly moved it towards its home in the rocks near the water. We had an amazing time picking up trash but finding these unique things made it 100 times better. We were all completely devoted and dedicated to this project and we enjoyed the process as much as we enjoyed the goal. We heavily recommend Blue Marsh’s Park as a location not just to pick up trash but also to visit, take hikes, and have picnics, even in the summer their lake is open to the public, where families go and spend the day. Brianna Treichler says the park gets packed during the summer so make sure to check it out this summer as a way to destress and have fun!
The Forces of Nature Take Southwest Middle School by Storm!
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.