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• The Green Side Members: Shalonte Branham, Tyler Wolf, Minh Khoa Tran, Ramon Bautista-Torres, Abigail Panepinto, Aboubacar Cherif, Troy Justice .• Central High School Magnet Career Academy, Louisville, Kentucky.

Land/Water Challenge #1

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The Green Side - Our Teammates are our

Classmates

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PART 1:Air and Soil Quality in the West End of Louisville

Our topic: to create an herb garden with plants and herbs that would improve both air and soil qualities, and provide the harvested herbs for means flavor purposes in the school.

Reason: We chose this goal in the concerns of 3 existing problems in Louisville:

High amounts of Lead and Arsenic in the soil due to local industries and wastes,

The high level of Asthma due to poor air quality, Lack of variety in school food.

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PART 2: The CHS Herb Garden

• Our plan: We will start by testing the soil where we plan on having the garden, Then we will determine the plants and herbs to use depending on the level the

soil at the starting point, Then we will go to the courtyard and mark the area off and get it ready for

planting( with soil feeders, and other items of this nature.) *** We will use the compost made of the schools wasted food so that it is

recycled to create more floor. While the plants are growing we will test the levels of ozone in the area, the

Lead and Arsenic levels in the soils, as well as the biodiversity of the soil.

PART 2: The CHS Herb Garden (cont.)

• Roles: Shalonte- Getting the testing materials, Minh- Website maintenance and updates, Aboubacar & Troy - Collecting materials, Tyler, Ramon, & Abigail - Collecting data, All- Carry out tests and build/ create garden. *** These are their base tasks, however, they are not their only jobs. We will all

have many more jobs than the small amount listed above.

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PART 2: The CHS Herb Garden (cont.)

• Our success will come in slight improvements. A project like this will not fix every problem it addresses in one go. It will need to be continued. On our first go, we are looking for small improvements on every topic that this idea of a school herb garden would addresses: biodiversity in the soil, soil qualities, air qualities, and lunchroom taste or student enjoyment of food. All of these topics should show improvements on the first planting of the garden. If the results are positive, we will encourage other schools to incorporate this idea, and try to get a few made in parks or recreational areas.

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PART 2:The CHS herb Garden (cont.)

? How will you quantify impact? (e.g. tallying how many gallons of water were saved, by tracking how many cans were recycled.)

We will quantify our impact through: soil tests, air tests and tracking the increase in biodiversity due to the new surge of life being introduced. A

All of the plants we will be using are native to the region, therefore adding them would not cause a vacuum of all the resources away from native plants because they originally were native. They will instead cause a more healthy soil and the plants will attract insects and other organisms, making this garden a small environment.

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PART 3:How we implemented our ideas

• Our Team got permission to use the courtyard at Louisville Central High

School Magnet Career Academy to start an herb garden that would have positive environmental influences on the soil, the surrounding air quality of the school and the nearby neighborhood.

• Once we are granted permission we began to prepare for the project of our environmentally enhancing herb garden

• We had attempted to get our plans put on the announcements at school. But due to technical difficulties in the schools internet, the message was never delivered to the Assistant Principal.

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PART 3:How we implemented our ideas(cont.)

• We worked with the University of Louisville on this project.

• They provided us with the testing materials as well as methods to obtain the seeds and plants we were looking for. They also provided all finances needed to get our safety and work supplies.

The University of Louisville was a big help in this project that we believe would be a huge success.

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PART 3:How we implemented our ideas(cont.)

• We created a website to call for awareness of our project: http://thegreenside.weebly.com. This website contains our overall goal and plans on it as I have pur before you on this PowerPoint.

• We also spread the word by just telling the other students what we were doing so we could try to get as many people involved as we could.

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PART 4: The Results

• Our plan is idealistic and helpful in many ways: An increase in ozone in the area, Increase in local biodiversity; such as insects and microorganisms in the soil, A healthier soil for plants and other forms of vegetation to grow in. • These are the results/successes we hope to see in our project. A big success we

have seen is the ability to get materials and permission to use areas of land, such as the courtyard at Louisville Central High School Magnet Career Academy.

• We rose awareness to the student body by spreading the word from student to student, but we were not able to get the greater community involved, and technical issues stopped us from being able to get more students involved.

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PART 4: Evaluate your plan. What are the results? (cont.)

• Challenges that we will or have faced include technical communication issues, communication in general, obtaining materials at the correct time, organization, and probably more that have a lesser impact.

• Obstacles that we have or will face in our project will be overcome in different ways depending on the situation at hand.

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PART 4: Evaluate your plan. What are the results? (cont.)

• The starting ozone levels around the school were very low and failed to match modern scales, therefore not adequate to pass the requirements.

There have and will be improvements• However, the lead levels have decreased to a

point that has a much lower chance of causing cancer to those in contact.

We learned that earlier organization would make things such as this much easier to do

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What will your team/school/teacher advisor do with their winnings?

We would put the winning rewards toward creating an outdoor classroom. The classroom’s purpose would be to bring future students closer to the environment that would thus give them the opportunities to witness first-hand the issues in our community and urge them to find solutions that would make the community better.

See official prizing breakdown

See official rules

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Project Gallery

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Our Goals

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Our soil vs. Healthy soil