Reducing Human Footprint

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1 What do you think of when you see the symbol on the right? What three words do you associate with this symbol? What are you doing to reduce your human footprint? Does your family recycle glass, plastic, paper products, and cans? Have you found ways to reuse items to keep them out of our rapidly filling dumps? There are many different ways you can help improve our environment. What can we do about littering? You might be familiar with the slogan Don t Mess with Texas. This slogan was part of a campaign by the Texas Department of Transportation to stop littering by motorists on Texas highways. The target group was males 18 to 35 years old, who are considered the most likely to litter. The amount of litter on Texas highways was reduced by 72% between 1986 and 1990, and this catchy slogan was credited with the improvement. Littering is a problem everywhere, not just along highways. Look around you right now. Do you see items that qualify as litter and need to be picked up and disposed of correctly? Littering actually seems very innocent. You have a gum wrapper, no big deal if you drop it. But every little bit adds up. Try a simple experiment in your classroom. Find a large glass or clear plastic container an empty 2 L plastic bottle will work. Place it in a central location in the classroom. Every time someone walks past it have them toss some litter in the container. Watch how quickly the litter adds up. Now multiply this by every person everywhere, and you can see how such a little thing becomes a big problem. 1

2 There is a new campaign in North Texas to reduce the amount of litter everywhere. It is sponsored by reverselitter.com, and it is called Ten on Tuesday. The idea is to pick up 10 items of trash every Tuesday and dispose of them properly. That s much easier than picking up trash along a highway. People go to the website and take a pledge to pick up Ten on Tuesday. Picking up litter doesn t just improve how the streets, yards, and floors look, it also helps decrease our next problem: water pollution. Think about getting your class to take the Ten on Tuesday pledge. Your class can possibly encourage the entire school to take the Ten on Tuesday pledge. You could make posters to place around the school showing the website reverselitter.com. The website contains information about the damages of littering as well as the Ten on Tuesday pledge. Career Corner: Environmentalist An environmentalist is involved in making people aware of dangers to the environment and getting changes made, usually with policies and laws. Environmentalists do a lot of public speaking to inform citizens about different environmental issues. Environmentalists can work for businesses to improve their companies footprints. Less than 10% of what Goodwill Industries takes in as donations ends up in landfills, which has hugely reduced the corporation s footprint. You could be an environmentalist. Get on the agenda at a school board meeting, town council, or civic service group like Rotary and let them know about the Ten on Tuesday movement or another environmental issue specific to your community. Your school or local college might have a radio station where you could speak about environmental issues. Local access television stations frequently offer school district time. You could have your own television show! Speaking before a group of high school students. 2

3 What can we do about water pollution? Water pollution truly affects everyone. As you remember from your studies of the water cycle, Earth s water supply is a finite, or specific, amount. While about 72% of Earth is covered by water, 97% of that water is salt water. The remaining 3% is freshwater, with 1.5 2% of that being frozen in ice, snow, and glaciers. Less than 1% of the freshwater is in the soil, or groundwater. The water cycle shows that all water that returns to Earth s surface either becomes runoff, moving into rivers and oceans, or infiltrates the soil and becomes groundwater. In Boston, MA, these plaques remind pedestrians and motorists that the water on the street drains into Boston Harbor. If you have ever watched rain water rushing into storm drains, you know that more than just water is carried into the water system. Leaves, sticks, mud, litter, soap suds from washing a car, runoff from a newly fertilized yard, engine oil, and leftover paint or paint remover are just a few of the materials that are washed along and end up in rivers, streams, bay, harbors, and oceans. None of this is good for human or aquatic life. Many communities have started a system of labeling the storm drains to remind citizens about where the water goes. Boston, MA, has displayed brass plaques on buildings. Making people aware with a simple message will hopefully cut down on foreign objects and materials being introduced into the water supply. Some communities have started stenciling storm drains with warning messages like Don t dump! and a picture of a brightly colored fish as an eye-catching reminder to take care of the water supply. Have you ever helped clean out the medicine chest to get rid of old and expired medications? What was done with the pills and liquids? Were they thrown in the trash? Did they get flushed down the toilet? Why are these not good disposal methods for the water supply? What is the correct way to dispose of medications? Talk to the school nurse or your family doctor to find out how to dispose of medications safely. 3

4 The folks of northern Delaware organize a community event every Spring to cleanup the Christina River. Consider your community. Where have you seen a pollution problem? Does the community have a recycling program? Could a community event be organized to help eliminate the problem? Does your community need to stencil the storm drains? Who would need to be involved? What can we do about air pollution? Air pollution is a problem around the world. As the amount of pollutants added to the atmosphere increases and acreage in forests decreases, the quality of our air in endangered. As you know from your studies of the Carbon Dioxide Oxygen cycle and the process of photosynthesis, green plants are critical to replacing oxygen in Earth s atmosphere. A worldwide movement towards community gardens is a simple way to reduce the human footprint. Community gardens can supply fresh food, offer employment, beautify neighborhoods, and build community spirit all while replenishing oxygen to the atmosphere. Community gardens can take different forms. In the middle of Manhattan in New York City, the Clinton Community Garden grows fresh produce and beauties the area. The Amazon Rainforest in South America is responsible for 28% of Earth s oxygen. 4

5 In Frankfort, Kentucky, the Commonwealth Gardens organization is building community and school gardens to support eating locally grown foods. Jasper County, Indiana, has a community garden run by churches that donate the produce to local food centers. In Denver, Colorado, there are over 100 community gardens, with 26% of the gardens located at schools. The REAL School Gardens organization supports outdoor learning centers (gardens) in elementary schools for hands-on learning and a connection with nature. REAL stands for Rainwater Environmental Alliance for Learning. If your town doesn t have a community garden, you can start right at home with a family garden. Tomatoes can be grown in pots. Lettuce and carrots can grow in small areas or raised beds. Planting a tree is a great family activity, and you can watch the tree grown along with your family. Just planting flowers can make a beautiful addition and help the environment. What Do You Know? Reducing the human footprint is everyone s responsibility, whether it is air pollution, water pollution, littering, noise pollution, soil contamination or thermal pollution. Improvements have been made in the United States, but the job is not over. Which type of pollution do you find the worst? What do you think needs to be done about it? Design a poster to make others aware of a form of pollution you find particularly terrible. Be sure to include the causes of the pollution in words and images in addition to what can be done to reduce it. Air pollution in the U. S. in

6 The Importance of Reduce-Reuse-Recycle Students have been hearing about reduce-reuse-recycle since Kindergarten, but by fifth grade they can definitely be a driving force in reducing the human footprint in the home. With your child, assess what is already being done at home in this effort. What else could be done in your home? Some questions to discuss: What are we doing to reduce the family s footprint? What items can we get at least one more use from? How are we decreasing waste of water? What would be the most efficient way to recycle? 6