Project: “Exploring the Urban Water Shed” program

SWEP awarded a $2,000 grant to the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center to hold its “Exploring the Urban Water Shed” program for rising 9th grade girls this summer. Ms. Karen Young, Director, submitted this application to offer a two-week extracurricular experience for 12-15 girls. This program will be held in collaboration with the Philadelphia Water Department, the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Education Center, and a University of Pennsylvania scientist. The program will allow the girls to learn about our local waterways and the need and efforts to protect them. They will be in the field “engaging with practicing professionals, taking water samples from the Schuylkill River and soil samples from its tributaries, wading in a running stream to collect macroinvertebrates and touring a municipal scale wastewater treatment facility.”

Newsletter Article for the 2012 Exploring the Urban Watershed:

August 6th was the start of our new two-week girls summer program, Exploring the Urban Watershed.  The participants were selected based on academic merit and a brief essay.  “Each one of them had a fabulous essay,” Meg said.  “It was really inspiring to read.  I was excited to put our theoretical program into practice as we have been working on it for a long time.”  The program was funded in part through a grant from the Society of Women Environmental Professionals.  The focus was on rising 9th graders and providing them with an authentic field and lab experience.   “Our goal was to get girls feeling confident and excited before entering into really important academic years.  We wanted them to see science in action – we visited treatment plants, working labs, got into the creeks and met scientists working in a variety of fields.”

The program concentrated on first understanding the context of water in Philadelphia and laying the groundwork for us to dive or should we say careful step into our Case Study.   Once the background had been set we turned to how scientists look at these rivers and the methodology they use to study them.  In a creative way we tried to get them to think about the scientific method – asking questions, making observations, looking for patterns, and finding different ways answer those questions and problem solving.  After the first week of the basics, we got into our specific case study in the Darby-Cobbs Watershed.  Here we had the opportunity to partner with the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Education Center.  Their laboratory facility was a great resource for us to analyze our collection data.  A Digital Scrapbook is available for download.

The group went into the creek, a new experience for many of the girls and a good one thankfully!

It was a comprehensive experience.  Our intent was to look at the whole picture of our urban watersheds and step into different aspects everyday.  The watershed view lent itself to naturally finishing with advocacy and stewardship action.   This inaugural program was a success and we are looking for other partners to bring science alive in the future.

Project: wH2O Journal

SWEP awarded the University of Pennsylvania’s wH2O Journal $500 towards the publishing costs of this annual publication. Abby Waldorf, Managing Director, applied for the grant. She wrote that the journal’s mission is “to advance women’s economic and social development through the provision of water and sanitation and create a centralized body of Interdisciplinary research of women and water issues.” As many women’s lives around the world are burdened by the daily sourcing of water for their families, focusing on these issues globally will bring attention to this issue and ideally create change so that women around the world can depend on clean and plentiful water. See the current journal edition at http://wh2ojournal.com/current-issue/.

Project: Girls Weekend in the Woods

A dozen girls representing WB Saul, Bodine, and Central High Schools, The Young Scholars Charter School, The Esperanza Academy Charter School, and Girls Inc. were mentored by SWEP members and Schuylkill Center Staff, for an overnight adventure in the Schuylkill Center’s woodlands. The United States has fallen behind other countries in the numbers of students pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) careers. The numbers are especially and persistently low for women, particularly those of color. Researchers are trying to learn why STEM careers are declining for these groups. “While interest is certainly a factor in getting older girls to study and pursue a career in these disciplines, more attention should be given to building confidence in their abilities early in their education,” says UWM Distinguished Professor Nadya Fouad. She is one of the authors of a three-year study aimed at identifying supports and barriers that steer girls toward or away from science and math during their education. “The relationship between confidence and interest is close,” says Fouad. “If they feel they can do it, it feeds their interest.” Science Daily, Sep. 8, 2008.

The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education is uniquely suited to engage girls in Environmental Science. Its Environmental Education department is staffed entirely by women, so the Schuylkill Center recognizes that it can be a critical agent of change in the Philadelphia region by sharing knowledge and building interest in environmental careers for girls. The girls built their confidence in outdoor skills such as camping, orienteering, canoeing, water testing. Angela R. Cornelio-Weimer was one of the high school girls who attended the Girls’ Weekend. “I hope it happens again and again, ‘cause I would love to participate more – I had a lot of fun and met some great girls!” “Angela loves doing things with nature”, added her mom Rosanne Cornelio. “Thanks for giving her the chance!” SWEP volunteers also participated in the weekend, such as Kathy Felter Freeman, Senior Environmental Scientist at Terra Nova Environmental Services, L.L.C. Said Freeman, “We couldn’t be happier with our decision to help fund the Girls’ Weekend in the Woods. It’s not every day that you get to see first-hand, how your contributions help women in the environmental field. The Girls’ Weekend in the Woods brought our mission to a reality. The Center found a way to make watershed education fun and exciting – Bravo!”

In addition, SWEP awarded a $1000 grant to the Erdenheim and Enfield Girl Scouts for a butterfly and bird migration garden. The money will be used toward designing, planting, and maintaining the migration garden. SWEP awarded a second $1,000 grant to Oaks Elementary in the Spring-Ford Area School District for enhancing a Wildlife Schoolyard Habitat.

Project: Planting Native Trees and Shrubs to Enhance the Environment and Wildlife Habitat

Through this project, girls in the lower school (grades 1st through 4th) will plant native trees and shrubs in an area located near a bird blind used by the School as part of their science curriculum. This planting will enhance the area around the bird blind and attract more birds as the trees produce edible seeds and nuts and provide additional habitat and nesting areas for the birds.

Additionally, the planting will benefit water quality in the Wissahickon watershed by facilitating infiltration of some of the stormwater runoff at the site. Students will care and maintain the planting area throughout the year, including the summer.

Project: Recycling and Waste Reduction Program

Through this project, students at Masterman School will develop an action plan to reduce waste and increase recycling efforts at the School. Once this plan is developed, the students will implement it at the school. The student’s plan could serve as a model for other schools in Philadelphia who are facing the same issues with waste reduction and recycling.

An environmental club will also be formed at Masterman, and through seminars, field trips, and invited speakers, the club will focus on the topics of recycling, waste reduction, and sustainability.

Project: Concern and Care for the Earth: An Environmental Science Essay Contest for Girls

The purpose of this project is to encourage girls in 7th through 12th grades to explore environmental science and careers; to provide girls the opportunity to write about the environment and communicate their thoughts and feelings about an environmental issue; and to give girls a chance to reflect upon human impacts and areas that require research and attention in their local environment.

Project: Greener Pastures

Through the Greener Pastures project, thirty-five academically at-risk students will learn about science, horticulture, and ecology through planning and planting a community open space project. The project will provide a hands-on method for helping low-achieving students learn ways to make a positive impact on the neighborhood while mastering the fundamentals of environmental and horticultural science.