Personal Narrative: My Ecology Action Project

People dump about 70 million tons of pollution into the air every day causing nature to be destroyed even though people can’t survive without nature. The needs of people are not more important than the needs the planet and animals.

The sun was glistening through the tall, swaying pines. To the right of the trail, a gentle river flowed softly down towards the mouth of the lake. Walking across the rickety wooden bridge, I inhaled a deep breath of refreshingly crisp mountain air. The sun beat down on me as I made my way across the bridge and back onto the well-used hiking trail. The ambient sounds of chirping birds, babbling water, and the croaks of several frogs filled my ears as I made my way around the bend. As I entered the mouth of the forest, I could see my father standing in the middle of the path, glancing upwards, taking in the beauty that had began to engulf us. “We better get going.” he said, looking back at me. “There’s still many miles to go.” I smiled and turned, taking in one last view of the beautiful creekside. Then, with determination, we set out to finish the challenging trek we had started.

The usage of land in the Mojave Desert is negatively affecting the desert as a whole. “Some key species are indicators of the overall ecological health of the region … most of these species continue to decline.” was stated by the mojave defenders. Certain animals such as the Mojave ground squirrel represent the health of our environment, and certain groups are inefficiently using the land of the Mojave Desert. Ultimately, this is leading to a decline in these populations.

Nature is a beautiful place for people to be active and enjoy quality time. My ecology project was to beautify the Morongo preserve by cleaning the trails by removing the intruding plants. I arrived at Big Morongo Canyon Preserve on September 30th, and turned in my signed waiver. A worker explained each of the jobs to me, in which I chose to remove weeds off the trail. I created a group which included Markina, Sierra, Sara, and Trinity. A worker guided us to the trail and helped us distinguish which plants to remove. I removed the invading plants by pulling each one by hand with a lot of force to make sure I removed the roots completely. Then I placed them inside plastic bags and disposed of them into a large garbage bin. Removing the invasive

Even if it is just so the generations after us won't have to work even harder than we will to clean up our planet. Going back the website tree huggers they have another article about how Sweden has not only gotten rid of their trash, they actually have an issue where they aren't producing enough trash. In the article “Oslo runs out of garbage, imports it from rest of the world” by, Michael Graham Richard. He goes on to explain “the city of Oslo in Scandinavia, uses basically a recycling plant to generate electricity and heat for nearly half of the city. They can't even produce enough trash so they have to import it from other countries” so the goal is one hundred percent attainable, we just need to come together and start caring a little more about the place we call

As lofty clouds lower their shoulders against the horizon, the sky likes to have its way with me, a warm front’s humid body slides along my skin, gently whispering against the arch of my back to curl around my waist and stretch along my spine.

For my National Public Lands Day project, to better the environment, I am volunteering at the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve. National Public Lands Day promotes both outdoor enjoyment, volunteering, and conservation of public lands. This event takes place on September 30th at 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. I will arrange a ride with my mom, then gather the needed supplies. My mom will drop me off a 8:00 a.m. with a group of park rangers, to whom I will address. For the following six hours the park rangers will assign the fellow volunteers and I specific tasks to complete.

I think that my family realized that I had crossed the threshold between childhoods when I began to form my own opinions. This first took hold when I took part in poverty stimulation at my local shelter. I was giving a character and a story behind the card I was given; the story made me become emotionally attached to this name I had been assigned and the family in which I came from. The experience made me question the prejudice of the society I was living in. How many times had I avoided eye contact with the people on the side of the road begging for money? I began a long journey of soul searching and questioning the beliefs my parents had raised me on. My thoughts were continually brought back to a book by C.S Lewis, it was called Out of the Silent Planet; a character named Weston believed that individual human lives don’t matter, they must be sacrificed to save mankind.

How is picking up trash going to help our environment? Research has shown, you may or may not know that our Earth has a hole in its ozone layer, due to society littering and polluting the air. Not only that, but by picking up everyday items such as soda cans and plastic bottles you can save hundreds, if not thousands of Animals, such as birds, bunny's, ducks, deer, fish and not to mention seals and many more different kinds of Animals from choking and eating trash that can potentially kill them. Of course it may not seem like just the two of us can do much, but remember in theory a little can go a long way.So if each individual in this class could vow to just clean up after themselves, Recycling

I disagree with the statement, “It’s not my job. Let somebody else do it.” To me, this phrase is saying that you don’t have a part in doing something. Helping the environment is just one-way people can help. Each person has their own part in helping the environment, whether it’s picking up trash or planting plants. Helping the environment is something that everyone can be a part of and trying to make it a stronger place.

For my project, I volunteered at the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve on September 30, 2017. I arrived at the preserve at 8 am, and my assignment was given to me. I participated in eliminating weeds from the preserve. The weeds were distracting from the preserve’s natural beauty, and they were encroaching on hiking trails; they needed to be removed. To clear away the weeds, I grabbed them close to the ground and pulled. I had to be careful not to damage any native plants. Along with pulling weeds, I also went on educational hikes that broadened my perspective on the environment in which I live.

Freshman year of high school I joined the Environmental Club. It started out with just five members who would do the school's recycling. With over 2,500 student and faculty members at my school, it was like doing the recycling for a small community. While recycling is great, our club wanted to make a larger impact in our town. We have since started volunteering at the local watershed to educate kids on important environmental issues, created no-idling campaigns, hosted multiple environmentally friendly concerts, and are working on getting solar panels put on the schools in our district. The Environmental Club now has over 25 active members. Through the growth of Environmental Club, I realized many students are interested in protecting our environment,

Along with my love for the environment came a pain in watching it suffer around the world as human development encroached onto once untouched regions. I felt powerless and desperate to somehow use my individual influence, no matter how small, to slow the damage to the planet and lessen the impact a growing population was having as we dive deeper for resources.

Seeing that I have brought a smile to somebody’s face makes me feel like I am impacting the world, and it gives my life a sense of meaning. For example, when I got up in front of my entire class and rapped a song by Kanye West, all of my peers were smiling and laughing at me because they knew that I was not a talented rapper. That experience will be remembered by those people as a positive and happy time which makes me feel meaningful. I have learned that making references and connections build stronger connections with people and will trigger some interesting conversations.

“Come to the Environmental Club meeting today,” urges my friend a few minutes before lunch. I nodded hesitantly, and followed her to room 323 for the meeting. “What’s so great about this club anyways?” I wondered.