Doing the Right Thing: An interview with a 5th Grader
Most kids are not too excited about cleaning. I know my kids groan when I remind them of their daily chores. That’s why it was remarkable, and certainly noteworthy, to see a fifth grade student cleaning up litter on their own. Meet Rean: Rean is a fifth grade student in elementary school in Oshkosh. The crossing guard at her school had noticed that she was picking up trash around her school and neighborhood both before and after school hours. Her good deeds were reported to the school’s counselor and from there, I was contacted at the Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance because the Trash Free Waters program loves to highlight those who help protect our waters from trash and debris.
This past week, I was able to sit down with Rean and learn more about her and why she believes it’s important to keep her neighborhood clean. When asked why she started picking up trash on her way to school, she said,
“I saw so much trash on the ground, and saw it every day. I started picking it up because nobody else would.”
Since she started cleaning up, she has been accompanied by her friend and fellow 5th grader, Vicky. When asked about her favorite lake or river, she said she loves all water bodies, but she especially loves spending time at Menominee Park–located along Lake Winnebago’s east shore. I wanted to get her thoughts on how she believes littering can be reduced and prevented. She reponded,
“People could have trash cans they bring along with them. We need more trash and recycle cans in more places. I want to make biodegradable plastic that grows trees if thrown on the ground.”
Finally, I told her she’s doing something that not many adults are doing, and asked her if she had any advice for adults. Rean responded,
“Please don’t litter, it’s bad for the planet. Make sure it goes in the trash can, [and] please use reusable items. You should join the watershed cleanup event in the spring.”
Rean received some trash bags, trash grabbers, and gloves from Fox-Wolf to make her efforts cleaner and more efficient. Thank you Rean for your hard work and for inspiring others to do the same.
Written by: Kelly Reyer, Trash Free Waters Program Coordinator
Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance, kelly@fwwa.org.
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Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance
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the Fox is a family-friendly event that celebrates World Rivers Day and the Fox River. Activities offered during the event include guided crayfish and critter hunting, guided nature hikes along the Fox River, fishing instructions for children with the KHS Fishing Team, Fox Lock demonstrations – Lock #3 with shuttle available, paper making, photo scavenger hunt, viewing of “The Power of the River” documentary, and river cleanup with Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance
to see that registration filled during the week prior to the event. Amcor employees made up a majority of the group, along with a Boy Scout troup and other conservation-minded volunteers.
cigarette butts, 130 plastic bags, and 53 straws. After weighing up all of the trash, the total was 134 pounds of trash and debris! Other interesting finds include: a tire with rim, orange cone, metal trash can lid, fireworks, baseball, tarp, and a container with two hard-boiled eggs from Costco. Check out the infographic!
kelly@fwwa.org
920-915-1502
Reyer paddled alongside Oshkosh North High School students and staff cleaning up a total of 23 pounds of trash. Included in this total was one large cooking pot, a slimy yellow bucket, a fishing pole, and lots of plastic bags and wrappers.
along the Fox River. Team-building events are a new opportunity offered by the Trash Free Waters program that strengthens employee relations, allow for employee connect outside the office, and makes an impact by protecting our water resources. The event took place on Wednesday, August 30th, will Foth volunteers meeting at Voyageur Park and learning about Fox-Wolf’s efforts in the basin. Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) prevention coordinator, Chris Acy, discussed his work in the watershed, highlighting both nusiance plants and animals in the area, efforts to prevent the spread of invasive species, and
different ways volunteers can get involved in this work going forward. The group then traversed to the park’s south side fishing island to identify and properly remove more purple loosetrife plants along the banks of the Fox River. Foth volunteers worked in small teams and efficiently removed over 20 purple loosetrife plants!
Watch program, and were given Salt Watch kits, containers, maps, and instructions for monitoring along the riverbank. Volunteers grabbed their water samples and used the Quantab test strips to get the chloride reading for their respective monitoring locations. The chloride results were all between 1.2 and 1.4 Quantab units, which is 31ppm(mg/L) or less. As expected, the chloride levels were relatively low as it was August and the Fox River is large which results in the dillution of chloride. Five Foth team members signed up to volunteer for the upcoming Salt Watch season.
and given a pen and a clipboard with blank paper. The non-blindfolded team member was given an image of a skeleton key and had to use their communication skills to describe how to draw the image without saying what the image was. This activity produced a wide variety of drawings and lots of laughter. We discussed what methods of communication resulted in drawings that most closely matched the provided skeleton key image.
up the park and along the Fox River Recreation Trail for over two hours, and removed 116 pounds of trash! Specifically, the Foth crew cleaned up 22 bags of trash, 727 cigarette butts, 76 platic bags, and 38 straws. Additionally, three volunteers won awards for “heaviest haul”, “weirdest item found”, and “largest item found”. The Foth environmental team did an outstanding job of improving the park and protecting our waterways.
Wolf’s Trash Free Waters program was on site providing program information to concert attendees and
engaging local residents with “Cleanup Bingo”, where volunteers were given a reusable cleanup bingo card, trash grabbers, gloves, and a trash bag, and they set off to clean up litter in the park–hoping to get a “bingo” on their cards. Once they found a trash item from any horizontal, diagonal, or vertical line on the card, the volunteers returned to the Fox-Wolf booth to collect a prize item for their efforts. We had volunteers of all ages cleaning up at Leicht Memorial Park who removed over 12 pounds of trash from this public site.