The Ripple Effect
learning with and from each other
Time to Clean Up!
To coincide with Earth Day, April 19th was the 3rd annual Tim Hortons Community Clean Up on Vancouver Island and with over 10 000 students participating from Comox to Victoria, our Island home is a little cleaner. There were several schools within our district taking part and a number of classes within our school that joined us in our effort. The primary students kept close to the school, but we took the opportunity to walk to a nearby park to pitch in there. Along the way, we picked up what we could, but there really wasn’t a lot of litter to be found. Once in the park, we combed the wooded areas and eventually took the back trails that edged the nearby subdivisions. It ended up being quite the adventure – more than we bargained for – and our 45 minute walk soon turned into an hour and a half. It was well worth it, though. and it opened our eyes to our neighbourhood home just a little bit more.
We’d like to thank Tim Hortons for sponsoring this event and providing the yummy timbits, BFI for picking up our school’s collection of garbage and recyclable materials that were found, and the Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) for waiving the tipping fees at our local landfill where it all eventually ended up. After this experience, it’s clear we need to head out into our community a little more often to do what we can to keep our neighbourhood clean and beautiful.
Division 1, what surprised you most on our walk? After commenting here, your task this week is to write about your impressions of our clean up adventure and what you think some of our next actions could be to address this.
If you or your class has ever participated in anything similar, we’d love to hear about it!
image: Earth Day 2012 by Bioversity International released under a CC Attribution – Noncommercial – No Derivative Works license
23 Responses to “Time to Clean Up!”
Leave a Reply
ClustrMap
-
-
-
-
April 23rd, 2012 at 10:44 am
Hi Mrs. Braidwood,
What surprised me the most on our walk, wasn’t just how much litter we found.. but what that litter was! I mean really… who would of thought that someone would actually leave part of a water dispenser in a blackberry bush? It was quite a pain to get out, might I add…
This Earth Day was a blast.. and as gross as some of the litter we picked up was, I’m proud of what our class did for our community!
April 23rd, 2012 at 10:45 am
Mrs Braidwood,
What surprised me most was that there wasn’t very much litter around the roads and walking to the park, but after we got to the park there was a LOT of garbage. It wasn’t just wrappers and little things like that, it was big things like pipes, chairs, and house sidings. Things that you wouldn’t expect to find. It was really fun to help clean up the park!
April 23rd, 2012 at 10:46 am
What surprised me most about our clean up is what we found and how much time it took to clean all of that up.I cannot believe that we found a chair, hose, water cooler, sprinkler, gutters! and siding for a house. And much much more. I had a full container of gasoline in my garbage bag! I am glad that we got out and did that we accomplished quite a bit out there and I would do it again.
April 23rd, 2012 at 10:47 am
Hello Mrs. Braidwood,
I was also surprised on how much we found. I was amazed on what we did find!I was also kind of dissipointed that our community looked that way.
At first I was not to excited to walk in the mud and pick up garbage but in the end it was totally worth it. It definitely feels good to know that our community is clean! I hope everyone realized how bad it was so that they don’t litter anymore, and our town “stays” clean.
April 23rd, 2012 at 10:47 am
Mrs.Braidwood,
The things I found in the swampy marsh area were very interesting like the hairspray bottle, golf balls, a Barbie toy truck… etc. That would be the most surprising stuff for me and made me wonder “what is this stuff doing out here in the woods”? I was also surprised by the amounts of gasoline and pipes and building supplies we found out in the back trails and places where there was absolutely no construction going on.
April 23rd, 2012 at 11:05 am
Hi Mrs. Braidwood,
I think what surprised me most was the amount of stuff we found and what we collected! We had almost enough materials to build half a house! The areas were goldmines and one of them looked like a construction site exploded! We even found a dead tractor. Wow!
April 23rd, 2012 at 12:53 pm
Hi Mrs. Braidwood,
What suprised me the most was the amount of garbage that we found! There was house siding, hoses, tubes, and lots more. I was expecting to find rappers and cups. I was also very suprised about the old rusty tractor that was just sitting in the middle of the trail!
April 23rd, 2012 at 6:03 pm
Mrs. Braidwood,
What surprised me the most is when we found the hose and the chair. What I loved about this clean up is that every single one of us were picking up garbage. I personally enjoy picking up garbage because it feels like I have accomplished something.
April 24th, 2012 at 3:18 pm
What surprised me was some of the stuff we found on the walk. We found some stuff that I would never think that anyone would just dump on a trail. Why would anyone throw out gas containers, water heaters, garden hoses, etc. It was also funny how much we collected on the walk. We had enough stuff to build a shelter, and then some. It was definitely way different then I expected.
April 24th, 2012 at 6:38 pm
Hi Mrs. Braidwood,
I think cleaning up the community is awesome. Watching that video and seeing all the junk everyone fond it just made me think how important it is to not litter.
April 24th, 2012 at 8:40 pm
Hi Mrs.Braidwood,
I was surprised most by the all jerry cans we found. I think there was four or five of them! I was also shocked to find a aerosol air freshener can in a small stream!
April 25th, 2012 at 10:06 am
The thing that surprised me was the amount of garbage that was found. I found it quite boring and all but still nice to help the community.
April 25th, 2012 at 10:20 am
Hi Mrs. Braidwood,
I was surprised when I found the barbie car, chair and hose because the hose was half buried in the ground and I needed help from some of my friends just to get it out!
I thought we did really good on this clean up and I wish we could go for longer. I am also really happy because it feels good to do something good for the earth!
April 25th, 2012 at 10:23 am
Hi Mrs.Braidwood,
I was surprised how much garbage we found. I was shocked that we found two garden hoses. We got ten bags of garbage im surprised that we could carry all of that and a metal plate!
April 25th, 2012 at 10:35 am
Sup Mrs.Braidwood,
I was so surprised how much garbage we managed to find on our walk. I think the Tim Hortons community clean up was a great thing for the community. I think our next step to a great community is keeping it clean now that we cleaned it up.
April 25th, 2012 at 10:48 am
Hi Mrs, Braidwood,
When we first went out I was thinking were not going to get much more than just wrappers but when we started walking in the paths I was surprised with what was there. I found a long black pipe thing and some sideing from a house! At the end we were all saying we can build a house with all of the stuff we found.
April 25th, 2012 at 7:07 pm
Hi Mrs.Braidwood,
I was surprised that kylie and I found a pipe and that I was able to jump rope with it.It felt good knowing that we left our community clean.
April 26th, 2012 at 8:18 am
Hi Mrs.Braidwood I was really shocked by what we found on that community clean up we found a lot of weird stuff like a sheet of metal. I’m glad we did it.
April 26th, 2012 at 8:46 am
I was surprised by the amount of garbage we found on our walk. Between us the class found a water cooler, garden hose, house siding, gas tanks and a broken toy truck. I felt good about doing this cleanup. Now the park we cleaned up is cleaner and safer for everyone. Next year I hope our class does the Tim Hortons Cleanup again.
http://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/difference/local-programs.html