In this week's class, we were able to update the rest of the class on our project and vice versa. The first group to go was Sam, Caitlin, and Lukas and they talked about the Essex County Environmental Center and how the soil that was recently tested and it had high signs of lead and arsenic. Their project seems really interesting because now they have to prepare to remove these elements from the soil. They informed us that they have planted sunflowers which have helped remove some of these concentrations from the soil.
In Cat and Kaitlynn's project, they are removing non-native New Jersey species. They talked about their timeline and how they have a solid plan that can now be used as guidelines. For some of their time there they will be making chairs and signs for the society. We also learned that Kaitlynn got a splinter and she survived. These are all good things to hear. Cat is also handy with tools, Kaitlynn is not.
Gabby and Rebecca also presented their project which they are partnered with Newark Science and Sustainability Center. They are creating lesson plans to teach students in third grade and fifth grade. Through creating these lesson plans they are trying to increase awareness of what is happening in the community. They want to increase the awareness of not only their students but also of the families within the area who can bring these things home and try these experiments at home. On their website they have many lessons planned.
We presented and we were informing the class on preparation storage and we were able to also share our new 'branding' of sorts. It was a really informative class! It was also really nice to see how everyone else was doing! A little bit of a drawback to this week's class was they a group has not yet gone to their placement so everything was theoretical, but they had a lot of research and they knew what they were talking about.
During this class we also had a PR person from Seton Hall come and view the class and ask us questions so she can write an article on the environmental studies program.