Lexus EcoChallenge Land & Water 2017

Land and Water Challenge 2017

Teacher Advisor: Rebecca Glavan
Team: Water4Life/Moana’s
Mothers
Team Members: Kate Houghton,
Kayla Hawkins, Ava Huttmann,
Kerry Kilduff, Selin Mazman,
Isabella DiRenzo
School: St. Dominic Elementary
School
City: Oyster Bay, NY
Principal, Ron Martorelli

Environmental Issues

Garbage and waste are ending up in our oceans and other
bodies of water. Every year, millions of tons of garbage is
created by humans. Much of this ends up being dumped
into the ocean. Also, factories using industrial chemicals,
often dumped waste into the ground. All this waste has built
up over time. It has affected the oceans and drinking water
in many places on earth.

Also, all of our waters are now very polluted, because of us.
One huge problem is our fish dying because of the pollution.
Microplastics are small microscopic pieces of plastic that
fish eat and become poisoned with. The plastics are in many
face washes, body gels, and toothpastes. Since we are at the
top of the food chain, it is most likely that we are also eating
these plastics. Since we eat the fish that have most likely
eaten the plastics.

Most Common Types of Garbage
Found in The Ocean

1. Plastic Bottles 5. Plastic Utensils
2. Plastic Bags 6. Straws
3. Cigarettes 7. Beverage Cans
4. Food Wrappers 8. Paper Bags

Source: www.banthebottle.net

Microbead Pollution

100,000 sea mammals are killed a year
because of microbead pollution and over
1,o00,000 seabirds are killed. An estimate
of 209 trillion microbeads enter the sea
from China each year. America has
banned the manufacturing of microbeads
as if 2018 so, we are making some
progress. Unfortunately we aren’t the only
country manufacturing microbeads and
the problem isn’t solved just yet.

Action Plans Moana’s Mothers: will write a rap for kids
and put it on YouTube to educate others.
The team split up into groups for the action plans. Our YouTube video will soon be up on our
channel entitled “SBABSS.” We also
Water4Life: Our action plan includes going to a dedicated an instagram account about the
local library and informing all of the people, issue called “MoanasMothers.” We will be
especially children about water pollution and posting weekly and spreading awareness to
how we can make the problem better. We are all. Every week we will post a fact about
also going to set up a poster there. ocean pollution and things you can do to
help, please go follow. We do not have many
● Kate and Kayla - will pick up garbage on followers yet but we are working on
the beach and write a song. spreading the word. We will continue this
account to inform other people.
● Ava - will think of of ideas to put on
slideshow and poster.

● Kerry - will make a poster and
present it at Hicksville Library.

Implementation “Water pollution’s
Not okay,
Kate and Kayla cleaned up the beach in Oyster Bay N.Y. Ava You’ve gotta get up
helped come up with ideas for the slideshow and typed a And clean the Bay.
majority of it. We presented our poster at the library Kerry’s Always throw your
mother works at. We informed people about the causes and trash aways,
effects of water pollution with our song. But never in the
ocean waves.
Selin and Isabella: Our YouTube video is up on our channel Fish are dying
entitled “SBABSS.” We also dedicated an instagram account Every day,
about the issue called “MoanasMothers.” We will be posting And our beach days
weekly and spreading awareness to all. Every week we will post Are thrown away.”
a fact about ocean pollution and things you can do to help,
please go follow. We do not have many followers yet but we are
working on spreading the word. We will continue this account
to inform other people.

Here is the link to the video we made: VIDEO LINK

Results Selin and Isabella: We think that if everyone
cooperates, the issue can be solved very
Kate, Kayla, Kerry and Ava: Our group was at the slowly. If we as one world got each other to
beach for approximately one hour. We collected ban microplastics maybe just that step could
about half a leaf bag of garbage. One of the get us somewhere. You live on Earth and you
challenges we faced was coordinating schedules can protect it by doing basic things such as not
so we could all meet up to work on the project. littering, not buying products with
We forgot to bring gloves, so we had to be microplastics in them, or just recycling your
careful not to handle anything that could be water bottle. It doesn’t take much, but it will
hazardous, such as cigarette butts and glass. As help much.
well as there being trash on the beach, there was
also trash on the docks. We did not have enough
time to pick up that garbage. We think people
should be more responsible since there are
trash cans and recycling bins on the beach. Park
maintenance can not do it all. In the future we
would like to organize a beach clean up with the
entire class.

Photo Gallery

Photo
Gallery 2

Land and Water Challenge 2017

Teacher Advisor: Rebecca Glavan
Team: Aqua Crew/Pollution
Powers/OBSP
Team Members: Ava Leone, Madeline
Foley, Olivia Leone, Daniel
Lambertson, Austin Liscinsky, Lucas
Schade, Michael Skillmore, James
Limongelli, John Limongelli, Aidan
McKinley
School: St. Dominic Elementary School
City: Oyster Bay, NY
Principal, Ron Martorelli

Environmental Issues

Pollution Powers: Our environment
issue is people are throwing their
garbage on the beach. This action is
leaving people and animals caution.
People in our community throw glass
bottles on the beach. After they do not
pick it up. People get cut from the sharp
broken glass on the ground.
Animals are also getting hurt from the
trash on the beach. Seagulls, and other
birds are eating the garbage thinking it is
food. Sea animals like turtles come out
of the water on the beach and get
caught on plastic containers.

Environmental Issues

OBSP: The dilemma we are facing, are the sewage laws of Oyster Bay.
Recently, sewage has been dumped into the Oyster Bay Harbor, and is
causing major pollution problems. For example, Oyster Bay Harbor is
restricted due to immense bacteria levels. As you can see Oyster Bay
Harbor is on the Beach Bacteria List Top 6, ranking number 4! Our team’s
objective is to take Oyster Bay Harbor of the list and to prevent this from
happening again.

RECENT HEADLINES:

“19 Long Island Beaches Closed, 1 Due to Bacteria
Levels”

“Swimmers Beware: No bathing at these Nassau
County beaches due to elevated bacteria levels”

Environmental Issues

Water Pollution is hurting sea-animals all over the world,
especially in the town of Oyster Bay. Water pollution is
affecting animals such as fish severely. Fish lose their
sense of smell in polluted waters. A fish’s sense of smell
is very important to survival. A fish uses its sense of smell
to avoid predators from consuming them, and find food.
Please help these fish and we can help the environment
get even better than it already is.

Sea animals in and around Oyster Bay Harbor are
consistently being affected by bad water quality and
polluted water. Each summer in the Long Island Sound, a
phenomena occurs called hypoxia. Hypoxia occurs when
concentrations of oxygen are less than 3 mg/L,
suffocating and possibly killing marine life. Hypoxia
forces some fish and invertebrates to scatter, making
them more susceptible to disease.

Environmental
Issues

Floatable debris reduce the enjoyment of the sound,
can be a nuisance or hazards for boaters, and can
harm wildlife. Trash can be ingested by fish or can
strangle the fish and suffocate them. Trash also
washes up along the coastlines and the beaches
become largely polluted. Trash can also wash into the
ocean from the coastline.

Action Plans ● We will try and convince a local restaurant
owner to buy local clams from our own Bay,
● We will make posters and put them up all around from independent fishermen, to avoid dredging
the community. and hurting the Bay floor. Calms clean up
pollutants in the water, so by buying more
● We will also give people our brochure at our clams we will not only boost local economy but
annual Oyster Festival. clean polluted water as well.

● Our team could talk to the Waterfront Center
about weekly beach cleanups to keep the beach
clean.

● Ask the town to add more trash cans on the
beach and empty them more often than usual.

● We will track how much animals could die with
the garbage on the beach.

● Our main idea to spread awareness for this
problem is to make an online website. We will
include a video, a picture of our local beach and
the garbage. We will also state our plans with the
coordinators of the Oyster Festival.

Action Plans

● We will talk to the Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor.
With this, an article made by our team about the
issue will be emailed or brought to him. We will
propose to him how this issue is impacting our
community and the effects it is bringing. We are
planning for this article to spread awareness of this
issue. We are hoping the Supervisor will take this
problem just as seriously as we do.

● Along with this we will write an article and make a
flyer. We would love for the public to be on our side
and fight against this dilemma.

Implementation

Here is the link to our article called Here is the link to our website
Why is Sewage Allowed to be which informs readers about the
Dumped into Oyster Bay Harbor, pollution that is taking place on
and How is it Affecting Our Long Island:
Community?
https://sites.google.com/drvcschool
Link to Article: s.org/www-stoppollutionli-org/home
https://docs.google.com/document/
d/1RNeU_0UZrKwt724VCFBf_nIA
UpwZlA-9R5HEC5hTbYc/edit

Link to our flyers:

https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/
1iQ96bS3eWkiE5FiY2GDGt1lqcu8ebiy4z
k9sApxyrs4/edit

Results

● Mostly, our results are yet to be determined.
● However, we plan for our article we sent to the Oyster

Bay Supervisor to hopefully be put in the local
newspaper. We also hope that this article will be
publicly shared in any way so that the public also
know what is happening in our community. Another
way we hope for our plan to end up in is, that our plan
to meet with the supervisor will eventually happen. In
this meeting we plan to get our point across about
how the sewage is affecting Oyster Bay Harbor.

Photo Gallery

Land and Water Challenge

Teacher Advisor: Rebecca Glavan
Team: Toxic Turtles
Team Members: Francis Oliveri,
Tommy Higgins, Aidan McDonnell,
Brooke Vetter, Jackson Lodati,
Anthony Capozzi, Julian Messina
School: St. Dominic Elementary
School
City: Oyster Bay, NY
Principal, Ron Martorelli

Environmental Issues

Why are millions of Our problem is a form of water pollution. This water
dead sea creatures pollution is when fertilizers get in the water and kill
suddenly washing up the fishes when it causes excessive algae blooms
on our beaches? Over which release toxins into the water .
the past month we
have seen a series of Some things that are getting into the water include:
extremely alarming glyphosate, fertilizer, and human waste.
death incidents all
over the planet. How Agriculture
can we help the fish?
Agriculture has quite the effect on freshwater
ecosystems from their pristine state. Run off containing
fertilizer, manure, and feces from farms raising crop
and livestock, pigs in particular, find there way into
ponds and other water ecosystem and causes
eutrophication.

Environmental Issues

This act of pollution can create algae which absorbs all the Oxygen in the
water and cause the fish to suffer and die from Hypoxia.

The Red Tide

The Red Tide is a more common name for the phenomenon known as an algae
bloom. It is caused by a group of dinoflagellates and the bloom takes on a red or
brown color. The Red Tide is only an irritant to humans, but if you do happen to
come across it, thoroughly wash off in clean, fresh water. Despite its nonlethal
effect on humans it can can be lethal to marine creatures and can contaminate
shellfish. The Red Tide can potential kill dolphins and endangered manatees.

Hypoxia

In case you did not press the link to take you to the link for the definition of
Hypoxia, it is a medical condition where a deficient amount of Oxygen reaches
tissue in a living organism. This can be caused by a number of reasons but in this
case, it is caused by excessive algae blooms that absorb all the oxygen in the
water.

Environmental Issues

Recap

In conclusion, poorly treated waste, and livestock's waste as
well(via runnoff), finds its way into fresh water marine
environments where it fertilizes algae which grows in massive
blooms unleashing large amounts of otherwise harmless toxins
and absorb nearly all Oxygen in the water and causing the
fish to die of Hypoxia. Not only does it affect marine life, but it
acts as an irritant to people stinging your eyes and making
your skin itch. If you have rather sensitive skin, it is
recommend to stay away from algae blooms in general but
The Red Tide in particular. Regardless, if you do swim in or
around an algae bloom, wash off thoroughly in clean fresh
water.

Action Plans

We will contact someone who Eat a Slice to Save the Bay
will do a seminar in the
Huntington Public Library which Our action plan is to have a fundraiser at a local
is available for things like this. pizza restaurant. We will hang up flyers that we
made about water pollution and ask for
We will put up posters all around our local donations At the Red Tomato pizzeria, all of the
neighborhoods; we will also make a money we make goes to a water pollution
website that talks about chemical pollution charity nearby.
affects the environment.

We are also going to contact Friends of the
Bay to raise money for the pollution issues
in the bay. The Friends of the Bay is an
organization that helps Prevent water
pollution and destruction of water habitats.

Action Plans

We have come up with an idea for an
invention. It is a buoy that has a filtration
system attached to it that is run by
bacteria. This will clean the water. We
will work to develop this idea.

Implementation

Here is the link to website: Flyers
https://sites.google.com/s/0B2FvDjI
1v6roZ3Y1LXB0QUF1RHM/p/0B2F
vDjI1v6roOTZZWVpYNzg1aXc/edit
?authuser=1

Photo Gallery