Service Learning

Cleaning up trash at my High School
At my high school Mountlake Terrace, I go to the Christian club there and some days we'll do community service days to just serve our community and the people around us. On this particular one my friends and I decided to do a school clean up, so we split into groups and picked up trash in the front and back of our school.

When doing the community service at school I found it really shocking to find so much garbage. There was water bottles in trees, tore up chip bags, gum wrappers everywhere, we even found a diaper in the school parking lot. I also found it very sad to find so much garbage in the stream next to the school. There were bottles, bags, school papers, we even found alcohol bottles near the stream. In all honesty I didn't think much about it when we were picking up, I was just having fun talking, and messing around with my friends. But when I thought about it more later, it struck me how damaging this garbage can be to the ecosystem. When we drop a piece of garbage were done with it, but the wildlife and the ecosystem is one that has to deal with the pieces of trash thrown everywhere. The animals the ones who are drinking the water that might have alcohol in it. But it was also very encouraging that with so little of us (there was only about 7 or 8 people) in about an hour or two, we were able to make a big impact in the amount of garbage around our school. I think it is important to take care of our schools, because not only does it affect the physical appearance of the school, it also shows the respect the people have the their school, people around them, and the environment. 

-Would putting more garbage cans up help with people just throwing trash anywhere?

-What would our community look like if we all every now and then do something to better it?

-What impact does polluting the little stream at my high school play in the bigger picture of water pollution?

-Is there a different way to get kids to want to take care of the environment that is more effective?