Title
Review and Approve Amelia Earhart Elementary NOAA Ocean Guardians Sign on Shoreline Trail Near Bay Farm Bridge
Body
To: Honorable Chair and Members of the Recreation and Park Commission
From: Amy Wooldridge, Recreation and Parks Director
Re: Review and Approve Amelia Earhart Elementary NOAA Ocean Guardians Sign on Shoreline Trail Near Bay Farm Bridge.
BACKGROUND
The following information is provided by Mr. Derek Douglas, science teacher at Amelia Earhart who coordinated the NOAA Ocean Guardians program with the students.
DISCUSSION
Since 2009, the NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries Ocean Guardian School program has awarded small grants to K-12 schools in California, Washington, Oregon, Hawai'i, New York, Maryland, Colorado, and most recently, Texas, Florida, and North Carolina. These schools make a commitment to the protection and conservation of their local watersheds, the world's ocean, and special ocean areas like national marine sanctuaries.
The students at Earhart Elementary have participated in this program since 2016. Our first five-year pathway was moving our school community toward zero waste to create a healthier watershed and ocean. We focused our energy on the 6Rs (Rethink, Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Rot, Recycle). Our students learned about their impact on the environment and how to reduce that impact at school and home. We also started doing monthly clean-up of the tidal area by the walking and bike path near our school. We've been weighing the amount of trash collected each time we go. Last month we had over 25 participants and collected over nine pounds of trash.
Although we will continue our work on the 6Rs, our pathway in the OG program has come to an end. (We've begun another pathway looking into habitat restoration.) Our final project was creating the sign that we'd like to install by the walking and bike path at the end of Packet Landing Road to help education the larger community about what they can do to protect our w...
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