Featured GYSD Projects: Environment & Climate Change

Many GYSD project organizers also participate in Earth Day activities. Some of the environmentally focused projects planned for GYSD 2009.

Carlock, IL -- YouthBuild of McLean County has a commitment to environmentally responsible design practices. We will create a small nursery of native flowers, prairie grasses, trees, and shrubs on a vacant parcel of land in Bloomington. The nursery will be utilized for residential landscaping and to restore drought tolerant, native species, while increasing summer shading and creating wind barriers. We will aso provide the homeowners of our self-help housing subdivision with potted plants to decorate their homes in honor of Earth Day.
http://www.gysd.org/events/2009/us/il/youbuild-mclean-county-environment...

Scottsdale, AZ -- This service-learning project integrates art with the principles of solar cooking and the concept of resource recovery. Demonstrating four different models of solar cookers, children will melt reclaimed broken crayons together in repurposed lunchroom milk cartons, then cool them to create new, larger crayons. Children can donate their new crayons to school children in Africa through Africa Seed's Crayons Project.
http://www.gysd.org/events/2009/us/az/solar-cooking-and-resource-recovery

Loveland, CO -- The SCORES Shout! Day of Action is a community action day when poet-athletes get out into the community to make a difference! SCORES Students have been studying their communities all spring, and on this day they will take direct steps to improve their communities. Poet-athletes from Denver will work at the High Plains Environmental Center on a restoration project. Alongside their coaches and volunteers from Starbucks, SCORES students will help enhance a 270-acre open-space oasis of riparian habitat, ponds and grasslands. They will help plant 1000 native trees and shrubs including cottonwood, choke cherry, and willows.
http://www.gysd.org/events/2009/us/co/scores-shout-day-action

San Jose, CA -- Middle School students will be investigating and addressing the issue of litter at school. They will challenge their peers to see how much recyclable items they can collect in a month. The profits will go back to each school, where the money can be used to build a new garden. Other schools will be creating arts and crafts items made out of recycled materials, planting trees on campus, starting a vegetable garden at school, testing water quality at their schools, going on a nature hike, and much more. Additionally, 700 Middle School students, along with concerned citizens, will pick up litter throughout Greater San Jose during the Great American Litter Pick Up. The Volunteer Center of Silicon Valley, in collaboration with the City of San Jose, Greater San Jose After-School All-Stars and other regional anti-litter campaign partners, will be recruiting volunteers for litter pick up activities throughout each of the ten districts in San Jose. 75 Middle School students will also clean-up Seacliff State Beach, in Aptos, CA to prevent debris from getting into the ocean where seabirds, sea turtles, marine mammals and other animals can get entangled or eat it.
http://www.gysd.org/events/2009/us/ca/waiting-world-changegreat-american...

Menasha, WI -- The "Reforestation Project" is a partnership effort between Menahsa High School's Youth Service-Learning class and the City of Menasha. Menasha, like many communities throughout the nation, suffered from the blight of Dutch Elm disease which wiped out these majestic Elms. Over the years, Menasha has brought back many new species in an effort to regain and rebuild its natural environment, and we will participate in these efforts to reforest Menasha and revitalize our natural areas. Thirty students and numerous adult mentors will plant 65 trees within a 5 block area of our community.
http://www.gysd.org/events/2009/us/wi/reforestation-project

Duluth, MN -- The Morgan Park 4-H Green Team, the Grant Community School Collaborative after-school program, and staff from Hartley Nature Center in Duluth will be joining together to educate and activate 4-H Green Team members and Grant Elementary School students in environmental issues such as local forest diversity and invasive species. Hartley Nature Center and its surrounding forest is a well known and beloved educational nature area in Duluth. The park has struggled with the invasive species "buckthorn" which takes over green spaces and chokes out native plants. Elementary and middle school age students, as well as approximately 20 college students from around Duluth will learn about the importance of forest diversity, help eradicate the invasive buckthorn, and replace it with native fruit-bearing trees to insure the health of the forest and its wildlife.
http://www.gysd.org/events/2009/us/mn/planting-trees-diversity