Green Mountain Area Homeschoolers has participated in the Jane Goodall Institute’s Roots and Shoots program since 2014. With their 9th annual Roots and Shoots project, our students focused on water conservation.
Each year, we begin Roots and Shoots in February. After the students have chosen a project, we apply for a mini-grant from the Jane Goodall Institute to help offset project expenses. Every December, I submit a report of what our group accomplished and how we used the grant money. Below are some excerpts from my 2022 report for our group.
Cover photo and photo gallery below are from our first few months with River Watch, a program we found and joined in the fall of ’22 through our Roots and Shoots project.
The Numbers for 2022
- 34 Student Volunteers
- 16 Parent Volunteers
- 491 Volunteer Hours – Included meetings, community engagement, collaborative art display, student-led learning, waterway cleanups, and art contests.
The Process
We started planning this project in February with students mapping our community and determining what they wanted to achieve for their project. In March, they agreed that water quantity and quality is a pressing issue for our community as our state has been in drought conditions for the past 20 years. Our population is growing, while our water supplies are decreasing. Their goal was to help people understand how to better conserve and protect this vital resource.
Their first goal was to learn more about water. They achieved this through meeting with local and state resources through in-person events, facility tours, and training. These included:
- Jeffco Open Space
- Colorado Parks and Wildlife
- River Science
- Colorado River Watch
- Golden Water Treatment Plant
- Colorado Water ‘22
Using this information, the group developed service and education activities/events to help our community understand ways to improve water quality and conservation. Highlights:
- Presented three student-led online water-themed craft tutorials open to all.
- Created a collaborative art display exhibited at local library to demonstrate where our water comes from and how we use it in our state.
- Cleaned up around local creeks and reservoirs, collecting 317 pounds of trash and 362 feet of discarded fishing line.
- Held a virtual art contest aligned with the Colorado Water ‘22 Showcase to increase water awareness.
- Outreach through web page and social media.
Colorado River Watch
Because of the scope of water issues in our state, our students looked into helping with existing conservation efforts. Two from our group attended a four-day training by Colorado River Watch, a 30-year-old state-wide volunteer water quality monitoring program.
At the training, they learned how to collect water samples and test for dissolved oxygen, pH, alkalinity, and hardness. They also learned how to collect additional samples for further testing of nutrients and metals by Colorado River Watch. This information is used to guide state policy and decision making for water resources.
Since the training, our group has begun monitoring water at a local creek and other students in the group are learning proper collection techniques and also the lab and chemistry work involved in testing. This monitoring will continue well beyond the end of our Roots and Shoots project.
What We Learned
We learned so much this year! The knowledge we gained about water sources and use in our state was eye-opening for students and adults alike. We also went much further into the details of water quality and chemistry than we imagined with Colorado River Watch.
If we did this project again, we might…
At the beginning of the project, we focused on fishing line pickup because we expected it to be a big problem in our local waterways. Surprisingly, it wasn’t. Thanks to new signs and fines for discarded fishing line, there wasn’t much at all. Had we been aware of this, we wouldn’t have focused so much of our earlier efforts on this.
Our favorite part of the project was…
Lots of small moments – seeing our collaborative art project up at the library, picking up trash around a reservoir on a beautiful June morning, all the different talents exhibited in our student art contest, and a real-life application of chemistry lab work for water quality – science in action.
Tips to Share (for others interested in your work)
Look for all the different ways you can work towards a goal in your community. Lots of small efforts add up over time.
In approximately 300 words, please describe your Roots & Shoots project. What community need(s) did your Roots & Shoots group identify and how did you address that need(s)? How did the mini-grant help you take action? Describe what happened:
Initially, we wanted to better understand water resources and conservation and communicate that to our community. As we progressed with the project, we took a more hands-on approach by picking up trash along our waterways and learning how to collect and analyze water samples to submit for Colorado River Watch, a water quality monitoring program that informs state water policy decision making. We encouraged local youth to use water as inspiration for any type of art they’d like to create for our contest. We used the mini-grant money to give Colorado State Parks gift certificates to participants and also to help with the cost of supplies for water monitoring. The legacy of this project is super cool – our students have committed to continue monthly water sample collection and testing for the foreseeable future.
How did your group measure the success of the project?
There were many small successes along the way, but perhaps our biggest accomplishment is that we will continue what we’ve started this year with a long-term commitment to helping monitor the quality of water in our community.
Above: Photos from the River Watch Colorado training in Cedaredge and then sampling locally as we transitioned from warm October days to chilly November and December.
I always approach the Roots and Shoots end of the year report with mixed feelings. It’s a time consuming task at an already busy time of year, but I love the end result. I often forget what we did six or eight months ago, so it’s rewarding to remember all the wonderful things that our students were able to learn and accomplish over the year. I’m excited to start our 10th annual project next month!
For more photos from our 2022 project: