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.