Many educators incorporate plants and animals into their classrooms for educational purposes, but those plants and animals have the potential to become or transport invasive species to new areas.
“The study, led by Oregon Sea Grant Extension’s invasive species expert Sam Chan, was presented at this week’s national meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Portland.
‘Live organisms are a critical element for learning and we don’t want to imply that they should not be used in the classroom,’ said Chan. ‘But some of our schools – and the biological supply houses that provide their organisms – are creating a potential new pathway for non-native species to become invasive.’”
There is more information available at the link above, and at our page about safely disposing of classroom specimens.
Seventh-grade teacher Kimiko Pettis participated in this year’s Windy City Earth Force project in partnership with Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant and the Calumet Environmental Education Program at The Field Museum, where she learned about the GLRI-funded Stewardship Project Contest (PDF). Ms. Pettis was selected as one of three award-winning teachers, and her students at Thomas Hoyne Elementary in Chicago helped educate their local community about the importance of properly using and disposing of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCP).
The class’ first step was to research the subject of PPCPs, how to dispose of them, and what effects they can have if they’re allowed into the water. The class invited IISG staffers and representatives from the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum to provide hands-on activities teaching them about water quality.
Then they put what they had learned into action by making posters and flyers that they posted in local churches, businesses, and shops. They also conducted a school-wide survey about water quality to find out what their fellow students knew about the issues, and wrote letters to legislators and environmental agencies detailing what they had learned about threats to water safety.
At the end, the students produced a great video skit to share with their fellow students at the school, and they participated in the Ford Environmental Leadership Summit at the Field Museum on May 8, 2012, where they were able to display the posters and flyers they had made and engage with the attendees to talk about proper disposal of PPCPs.
Ms. Pettis and two teachers in Pennsylvania will each receive a $100 gift certificate to use for education resources as an award for their excellence in fostering student engagement and stewardship.
The contest, sponsored by Sea Grant Programs in Pennsylvania, Illinois-Indiana, and New York will continue throughout the 2012-13 school year, and complete details are included in the PDF linked above.
A lot of people are probably familiar with the streams, lakes, and rivers near where they live. Many people might even be able to point out where their local water treatment plant is. But what a lot of people might not know is that the water we use often comes from a long, long way away.
Watersheds are areas where water comes together and drains to a common place. In addition to the streams and rivers and creeks that we can see, though, watersheds encompass a huge range of pathways for water, and your nearby water supply might be part of a very large system that spans multiple states.
As a result, even in areas where there aren’t necessarily rivers nearby, what goes into our water directly or indirectly can have a big impact. Development and sprawl, even well outside of cities and away from rivers or lakes, can have a significant effect, and that is the focus of a recent article from The Atlantic Cities:
“Of course, obtaining sustainable development in town isn’t enough, in and of itself, to guarantee high quality, fishable and swimmable rivers and streams. Industry plays a part; utilities and waste water treatment plants play a part; sensitive farming, ranching, and/or timbering play a part, all in different proportions depending upon the particular watershed in question.”
The interconnectedness of watersheds is one of the main motivations behind initiatives like
Lawn to Lake and
Unwanted Medicines – keeping the bad stuff out of our water protects people, plants, and animals across a wide region.
Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant’s new video celebrates the program’s recent opportunity to raise awareness about safe disposal of unused medicine in one of the biggest venues possible – Times Square!
An estimated 500,000 people go through Times Square every day, and one million people crowded the streets at midnight last New Year’s Eve.
The focus of the Times Square message was to not flush medicines. For years, the recommendation was to do just that – but now we know that these chemicals can end up in lakes, rivers, and often our drinking water. The best solution right now is to take your unwanted or expired medicines to a collection event in your area where they will be safely and properly disposed of.
To learn more about this issue and find helpful resources, visit our new website, www.unwantedmeds.org.
