Terri Maas Anger’s classes at W.B Saul High School took on a variety of exciting service learning projects. Read on to hear about the variety of projects one class did with Fairmount Park. Team members Tyana, Ashley, Atima and Jazzmine learned about the demands placed on Fairmount Park by many different uses such as hiking, trail biking, fishing, and horseback riding They handed out Trail User park permit forms and educated people about park rules like keeping dogs leashed.
Jaleesa did a presentation on the history and growth of Fairmount Park at Saul Community Day. She was surprised at how many people took an interest in the subject and distributed illustrated booklets she prepared so they could learn more. Tanisha and Michele created a story book with pictures of animals living in the park to teach children not to litter and ran out of all 60 copies they brought along.
Some teams experimented with multimedia for their presentations. A PowerPoint presentation was the method chosen by Joe, Jake and Harris about their cleanup effort in Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park in South Philadelphia. Deer problems and litter problems in Fairmount Park were the theme of a humorous, but effective, video using anime characters produced by Phil, Cheyenne, Rob, Caitlyn, Karli and Serena.
With assistance from Fairmount Park volunteer coordinator, David Bower, Tiffany, Nicole and Tamika helped plant tulip trees and silver maples. Lyane, Ian, Brook Ashley and Rachel took on a cleanup of the Valley Green area inFairmount Park and were a little dismayed at the beer cans and trash, even where the ducks were about.
Ian knows kids come down to this spot and like to throw rather than put trash into the trash can “to make a basket.” “If we miss a shot, we should go up and put it in the trashcan to keep this place nice,” he says and hopes other kids will start to think the same. Aurian and Akilah had a lot of fun testing water quality of the Wissahickon Creek at Valley Green for turbidity, levels of nitrogen, phosphate and oxygen and are in the process of analyzing and reporting their results.
Jane, Lisa, Laura and Bridget recruited friends, family, a teacher and Alice Reiff, an East Falls Tree Tender and head of the Friends of Inn Yard Park, for a cleanup and mulching of trees at Inn Yard Park. Their efforts were reported in two neighborhood newspapers, The Fallser and the Roxborough Review.