These were just some of the pictures we took along the way of our journey. We wanted to originally put them on the post of our service reflection, but we had issues with doing that, so we just made a new post for it. Also, if you haven’t, check out our Service Reflection post!!!
Category Archives: 2018 Sp Earth Squad
Service Reflection
For our ECAP project, we decided to work with the “City of Reading Public Works Department” While working with them, we had to learn the process of geocoding which is a process in which we had to convert an address into geographic coordinates. Our mission was to go through certain areas of the city and search for illegal dumpsters while converting the points into geographic coordinates on google maps. As a part of the requirements, we had to put as much information about the dumpsters as possible, that included things like the company’s name, telephone number, etc. We were specifically assigned to two areas of the city, these included the areas of 6th ward and the Reading High School area. In terms of what we found, we saw that there were much more illegal dumpsters in the Reading High School area than the 6th ward area. After pinpointing the illegal dumpsters, we then have to send the information to Kevin, the coordinator of the program, and he deals with the situation from there. The sole point of geocoding is to help the city locate such illegal dumpsters and proceed on whether or not the establishments with the illegal dumpsters need to be punished or not.
As for our team’s reflection on geocoding, we really enjoyed doing this. It was a great way for us to learn new things about the city and the community, it also allowed us to help make the city a cleaner and organized area. While walking around the streets of Reading, we also noticed the lack of space in this area. Many of the dumpsters that are illegally placed on the sidewalks are done by business owners of the local corner stores. The main issue is that the majority do not have a space in the back to put said dumpsters, and have no other option but to display them on the sidewalks. They also might be unaware of the problem this is causing the city which as they become aware from receiving fines they’ll be able to address the issue to the town council that the city is having with these dumpsters. Although this can bring some negative consequences for the business owners of these corner stores, it’s all for the good of the city and to make the city of Reading a more cleaner place. Overall, this experience taught us many things about the city, the environment, and how we can all make a change for the better. Aside from all the experiences we’ve encountered throughout our journey, we have come to learn how much of an impact we as humans could make if we all worked together as a team and make an even bigger impact. We strongly believe it is in our best interest to leave this earth better than we found it, if we recycle one piece of plastic then let’s pick up trash we see. The small things we do makes a big difference in how we change this world.
Earth Squad Meets GeoCoding
Hello fellow classmates,
Earth Squad has initially met with Kevin Lugo the representative for The City of Reading. We have discussed how we will be going around Reading looking for dumpsters that businesses own that have overflowed with garbage and could be a hazard for animals, and waterways. The main problem Kevin explained to us was that the city is losing money because they are not reinforcing the laws where the dumpsters are not in the proper place they’re supposed to be at so the city is losing money in fines they could be issuing. Our duties are to go to certain area of Reading and locate these dumpsters so we could help Kevin bring it up to the City counsel to resolve these issues. We will keep you updated on our experience, thanks guys!
EARTH SQUAAAAAD!!!
Hello, everyone, we are Earth Squad. The members of our group include Jorge Higueros who is a sophomore at Penn State Berks majoring in Global Studies Contemporary History & Politics, Omar Santana is a sophomore at PSU majoring in Rehabilitation and Human Services, Donal Contreras a sophomore at PSU majoring in criminal justice and applied psychology, Diana Arias is a sophomore at PSU Berks, she is majoring in Rehabilitation and Human Services with a minor in Psychology. For this project, we’ll be working with the city of Reading Public Works Department of Geocoding. Our appointment at the moment is going to be this upcoming Monday and was going to talk about the next steps we need to take as a group. We are looking forward to helping and contributing to our community through this organization.