Nicodemus Wilderness Project -- Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists

We were all asked to participate in a group clean up on the rivers of Rock Creek Park, and in the mean time we got to collect bugs and determine what they are! I was really excited that our teacher, Ms. Lynch, invited a select few on this trip out into the wilderness. We were enjoying this activity from 9 pm to 1 am! It was a really sweet experience learning about the dangers we are putting our wildlife into, and how much pollution harms our environment. We got to save a bat who was stuck inside of a plastic bottle, I was really thrilled that in the end he was going to be OK. We followed up this project the next day at school, but with about 30-40 people. We cleaned up the streams by our school, and by the time we finished we all smelled like dirty fish water. It all paid off though, the water was really contaminated by all the chemicals running off of the material that we picked up. We picked up over 2 tons of trash within 6 hours. Our schools dumpster was so full that we had to place trash outside of it. We then tested the water a few days later and the water was still contaminated but not as much. We continued our trash clean up days later and came to a spot that looked like a land fill. It really saddens me to see that we are really harming our environment with all of our carelessness. This project really opened our eyes to the pollution that affects not only our environment but how it affects us.