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NWP Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists - University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

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University of Nevada Las Vegas, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
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lvsaxman



Registered: December 2009
City/Town/Province: Las Vegas
Posts: 1
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Wash Clean Up, November 14th 2009
Class collective, cooperatively, with flair and artistic liberties by Roland T.


The HMD 376E Class project is to manage the overall process of cleaning up the wash in front of the Stan Fulton International gaming institute building. The class is to be divided into five groups, each with one particular responsibility for the wash clean up, and these teams will coordinate efforts of faculty members at UNLV and students of such faculty members to actualize those principles being taught. Such principles as management, team-work, personal and social responsibility, and of course the three E’s.


Why clean up the wash?
As we have been learning throughout this course how our actions as a society inadvertently destroy our environment, the very habitat we depend upon for our survival, and our dependence thereon and the responsibility we have as participants in this world to take care of the world, it becomes clear that we must clean up our trash. Throughout the UNLV campus there are many opportunities to help preserve nature and to give back to the remaining parts which are more natural. One such place is in front of the Stan Fulton International Gaming Institute, as the building is situated on the banks of a wash. All of the habitants of the wash will benefit from the environment being cleaner, whether they are indigenous, or whether they were relocated to the habitat, such as the avian types, and even the unfortunate homeless types.


Who wants to live in a trash dump? Other than microbial, algae and viral colonies, I would venture to say that no being would want to live in a trash dump. However, our refuse and debris have accumulated in the wash, as they have in most areas where human existence is found, and have marked their territory with detrimental consequences, both physically and aesthetically, especially for those of us who are associated with the Hospitality Industry.


For those who look at the wash with discomfort aesthetically, due to all of its rubbish and the discarded petrol-chemical packaging, should point the dirty finger of blame at themselves first for inadvertently, or even deliberately “disposing” of such items in an inappropriate location. Only when we collectively grasp our personal responsibility for and connection to the garbage will we become enabled to make better decisions regarding the trash that encircles us on a daily basis. As Marvin Gaye once sang, “Self destruction’s in my head. So stupid minded… I did the best I could. Nobody understood.” To change the phrase from this song from becoming an ever-present reality, especially within the UNLV campus, the HMD 376E class set on a project to educate ourselves with the help of our professors, as to what it is like to manage a task force dedicated to the betterment of ourselves through voluntary service. Part of this education process comes from our hands on work force, composed of student volunteers working for extra credit, and our faculty members, serving as moral support and hierarchical guidance. As we work for the betterment of the wash as an ecosystem we also work to save ourselves from ourselves by changing paradigms, and hopefully there will be those who understand and give it their best.


Necessary Physical Requirements to Perform Labor
The wash itself is a man-made structure with manufactured banks, covered in a green plastic mesh, which holds the shape and angle of the directing sidewalls. Either side of the wash is pitched at a significant angle, which could cause some safety issues in itself, let alone the nails which protrude from the ground that fasten the mesh to the ground. With the large cleaning are to be covered, the assistance of volunteers is desirable. Since we are all college students with little money, we can’t hire someone. Plus, there is the saying, “if you want something done right do it yourself.” That being said, our class will be joining our forces with Mr. Teeters facilities management class to clean the wash. This way, our cleaning efforts are both economical, and ecological.


Since the work force will be student and faculty labor, we need to ensure that there are participants, or volunteers; we need to ensure the safety of the participants, that there is food and water, that there are tools to work with, and that there is some positive motivational force to keep everyone on target. With the help of Chris Daly, our class was divided into these five teams, each with a particular responsibility.


The management team was responsible for the actual physical attributes of the clean up project, coordinating who did what, where and when. We divided the wash into three basic units. People that would work only on the side of the embankment by the Stan Fulton Building, a group that would work only in the water, and a group that would only work on the bank nearest to the parking lot. To better facilitate the different workers, some materials are required, and Mr. Teeters so generously accommodated us by bringing boots, rakes, shovels, gloves, and mechanical fingers. Also, the management team took on the responsibility of some of the other groups in the event that they did not deliver satisfactory results.


Other duties of the management team included: assigning project papers’ requirements both before and after the clean up, compiling the final write up consisting of all the teams’ information and data provided through the individual team after-project paper assignment, and grading the teams based on their performance. Evaluation criteria will be cited later in this paper, but for now the perspective final write-ups by team are to follow.


Management Team
Our job as managers was, as you would have guessed, point our fingers at others and yell at them from behind our desks in big overstuffed armchairs. Not! Like any good manager in any industry, we got dirty alongside our peers as we told them how we wanted things accomplished, while still maintaining composure in difficult moments. Our main objective was to clean the wash, as for motives discussed above in the section “why clean up the wash” which are in summary, to lower the human impact on the surrounding ecosystem, to raise awareness about the human factor through physical labor, and to gain experience in managing our peers in a complex situation.
The first thing to be decided was what day the group project would be performed. As a class we decided on Saturday the 14th. This date accommodated as not interfering with Finals’ Week, or with any major sporting events on campus. Plus, the water would not be too cold being still the second Saturday in November. Next, naturally, was at what time do we want to work? Do we want to serve lunch for those that are working? Do we want to recruit other students to work alongside us for that extra man power (or woman power) and how would we divide the so that there are not any friends working together as an excuse to socialize. How we were going to divide the wash in to sections to be cleaned was also an excellent question, as were all of the questions. As managers, we came up with the best answers to these questions while remembering that we were to be included in the workforce, thereby keeping an ever-constant check on ourselves to not require something of a volunteer that we were not willing to do ourselves.


As for the project time, we decided it is best to get there early, work hard, and leave early too. Thus, 7:30am was decided as the managerial call time, with the rest of the teams and volunteers showing up at 8am, where they would be divided into groups, with each group pertaining to a particular function of the wash cleanup. We would then work hard until lunch at 12 where we would tantalize our ever-so-exquisite palates with pizza, soda, and water. (If that doesn’t say student budget then I don’t know what does)


Once lunch was done, or at about 1pm the clean up would continue, if there was any mess left over and we would continue cleaning up to 2pm. With these stipulations and aforementioned categories of workers into groups working on either bank, or in the central water, we proceeded to organize the rest. We jumped into manager mode and inspected the quality of the work produced, while giving motivation and even examples.
The most complicated task would be coordinating how the garbage removed from the wash would be sorted and transported over to the rebel recycling center while maintaining a work force sufficient enough to remain cleaning at all times.


Prior surveys of the area showed the highest concentration of trash and debris to be located at the north end of the wash, which so happened to be the convenient location of a few of our less fortunate friends, or in other words the vagrants lining under the bridge. Safety precautions would need to be abided by when in the general vicinity, as well as the all around safety measures to be followed.


With all of this before planning, and group collaboration with the sketches and plans, with the brainstorms and the revisions, even though I was not able to make it to the event that Saturday, the plans held up, for the most part. The wash cleanup went on because we had planned how to perform the wash clean up, and it was successful. As I discussed with the other members of the management team, I was attending a required driving school, because I got in a car accident a few months earlier, which only was offered that Saturday. (I found out after we made the initial plans for the cleanup on the 14th. Bummer, because I was really looking forward to working alongside some girls that had to roll up their sleeves and get muddy.)


Equipment Team (satisfied the requirements, as stated in the Evaluation portion)
As the group responsible for ensuring availability of equipment, our initial task was to determine what kinds of items our group would need to clean the Stan Fulton wash. Gloves, boots, and garbage cans seemed logical, but we also tried to stress over the small details; those little things that people probably didn't even know they needed. Our initial efforts were executed in hopes of self sourcing all of these items, but to our surprise, Professor Teeters claimed that he had 95% of the things we would need in his own personal stock, and that he planned to bring them with him the day of. From that point, our group became concerned with finding first aid kits, and trash containers. For the first aid kits, we reached out to some of our UNLV peers perusing medical degrees. They provided us with access to some basic supply kits – band aids, disinfectant, gauze, etc – and also provided us with a location on campus to look to should anyone become hurt beyond the aid of our supplies. For trashcans, we turned to the UNLV grounds keeping. They provided us six standard garbage cans, bags, and they also planned to bring us a large container in which we could throw away any large items we found in the wash. One of our team’s challenges right out of the gate was the non-delivery of this large container.


When looking at the wash from afar, you can see a handful of large debris. In our case, we could see a tattered shopping cart stuck in the weeds. We saw moldy down comforters and wooden loading pallets. Looking at these things, we determined as a group that about 16 or 20 garbage bags would be necessary to collect these things. This was a vast underestimation as a group, but also an underestimation that seemed to be shared by the class as a whole. Once inside of the wash, the amount of debris was truly shocking, and our realization of being under supplied for trash bags and bins became instantly shocking. We compromised by emptying full bags into a central location and reusing any bags that hadn't been torn or destroyed during their first filling. We also made several trips to the recycling center close to the Stan Fulton building and reached out to their employees for assistance with more trash bags. At one point, we even pulled resources from the Stan Fulton building staff, asking if they could supply any garbage containers from their personal custodial inventory.


As a whole, the equipment team had a simple task that became clearer in hindsight. With Professor Teeters sourcing most of the things we'd need to successfully clean the wash, our task as a team became the real-time efforts to manage those items, and to “think fast” to fill in any gaps caused by broken materials, or short supply. Though considerable efforts took place before Saturday the 14th, our true task was the teamwork we exhibited in solving the multitude of equipment related problems – particularly those relating to trash storage and dumping. Our greatest sense of accomplishment, as we drove away that evening after the wash cleanup, wasn't that we came prepared for any and every problem, but that we were capable of rising up to face each unique challenge as it presented itself. This is a project we won't forget.


Equipment count provided by Mr. Ken Teeters:
• 9 Rakes
• 2 Shovels
• 6 Mechanical Fingers “grips”
• 15 Water proof boots for wading in the water
• 60 pairs of gloves
And most importantly, the motivation and education to start this project in the first place.



Security Team (satisfied and exceeded the requirements)
The main issue in Security, when handling the wash project, was making sure that all the proper preventative precautions were taken. Whether it be slipping on the side or accidentally cutting themselves, management members and volunteers needed to be aware of the dangers. The main objective of the Security team was to make sure that volunteers and members of the management teams were not misbehaving and actually working. In addition, members of the Security team were in charge of making sure a first aid kit was on premise. (The actual search for the first aid kit was out-sourced to the Equipment team.) Also, because the wash is part of county property the police had to be notified of the event and a plan needed to be in place if a police officer stopped by to observe the clean up.


While the operation ran smoothly, there were a few problems that occurred. One of the main problems that the management team was having was dealing with the volunteers. Although some of the volunteers wanted to work, a majority of them were there just for the extra credit that was offered. It was difficult to motivate them into helping and showing them that the wash cleaning benefited not only the management teams performing the act, but the volunteers as well. Even though the volunteers did not want to work extremely hard, most lent a hand in cleaning up the mess.


If I were to perform the wash clean up again, I would definitely change how the volunteers were handled. I would have split the management teams into their respective teams and then assigned volunteers to each. By assigning volunteers to each of the teams, the management team could have kept a closer eye on each of the volunteers and determined if they were indeed deserving of the extra credit. After observation, if the worker performed the tasks that were asked of them by the management team then they would receive the extra credit. However, if the volunteer did not perform the tasks that were asked and had an overall poor demeanor, they would not receive the extra credit that was offered. By splitting each team and observing their activities, I believe that the wash clean up would have gone faster and more efficiently.


The Wash cleanup ultimately resulted in the desired effect. While small problems occurred, each was addressed and handled. The management team's overall goal was accomplished and the wash clean up was a success. While there could have been small improvements, the management team worked well together and performed admirably.


Food Team (satisfied and exceeded the requirements)
Our goal was to provide the managers and volunteers with a break to re-energize their bodies while creating as little waste as possible. Because the overall goal was to clean the wash area, it was important that the food we ate and the containers it came in did not end up in the wash we were trying to clean. Also, we were concerned about buying food that came in containers that could be recycled.


To provide enough food, we counted the numbers of volunteers, managers and teachers that would be present, which were approximately 84 people. Professor Teeters mentioned that in previous years, 20% of the volunteers did not show up that day, so this percentage was taken out of the count and the final count came to 66 people. Next, the menu was planned. Based on ease and cost, it was determined that pizza would be the best lunch item, accompanied with granola bars to fill the stomachs. Water would be provided all day, and soda would be provided with lunch. For the number of pizzas needed, I took the number of volunteers, multiplied that number by 2, and then divided that number by 12, the average number of slices in a large pizza. 66x2=132 | 132/12=11. Eleven pizzas would be needed for the day. I then decided 6 would be pepperoni, the most popular pizza topping, and 5 would be cheese so those who are vegetarians would have options as well.
To provide enough soda for the group, I consulted with a special events coordinator that plans small parties. She said for a party that large, she would generally purchase 15-20 2 liter sodas depending on the group and time frame for consumption. Hence, I planned for the following 2 liters:
• Diet Coke (5)
• Regular Coke (7)
• Sprite (4)
• Orange (2)
Water was being provided by the dean's office and also our professor. The water containers would be in 5 gallon jugs to reduce the number of containers used. We also asked the volunteers and managers to provide their own reusable bottle for water to further minimize container usage. However, we did have 50 plastic cups available for students who are not green yet. Other utensils for eating were provided by the Stan Fulton Building kitchen. By using their reusable plates, we avoided creating waste that would end up in the garbage.
Problems
The food team was quite efficient and few problems arose. The biggest challenge was getting a final count of volunteers for which to purchase food items. I needed this number in advance to give to Annette Kannenberg who would be purchasing the food with the department's credit card. After the final count was given to us, we gave Annette our list of food items needed and information on where to purchase the pizza. Rebel Pizza sells large pizzas for $3.95. This helped minimize the cost for our project. Annette left our food items in the Stan Fulton Building which we would be utilizing for our lunch period, so everything turned out as planned.
Conclusion
Our only thoughts for next time would be trying to find a food that was just as easy and cheap, but that didn't create as much waste. The pizza boxes could not be recycled because the grease from the pizza soaks through the cardboard, soiling it to where it cannot be recycled. I would also like to see the managers purchase re-usable bottles for the volunteers to encourage them to continue to be earth friendly and to stop their use of plastic water bottles in the future.


Volunteer Team (did NOT satisfy the assignment minimum of 200 to 300 words. Plus, the write up is not descriptive of where the volunteers were recruited from)
“Events can be very difficult to run without the proper help. That is why having the proper help is very important. One important thing to know is always plan for a small percentage of people to show up. We had 20 people signed up from the NSMH; however, only about 6 arrived. We were able to get the majority of our volunteers from the facilities class where they were given extra credit to show up. Since they are only volunteers the motivational levels only stem from the cause. The students who only arrived for the extra credit were less willing to get dirty and help; whereas, the ones that arrived with a positive attitude and wanted to help the cause were more proactive. When dealing with volunteers you should have the out most respect to them. You need to realize that they are there willfully and unpaid and don’t deserved to be abused or mistreated. Don’t ask a task of a volunteer if you’re not willing to do it yourself. Go out with a positive attitude and you’ll have a great event.” –From the volunteer paper-


> In class there was a member of the National Society of Minorities in Hospitality (or NSMH) who volunteered the whole group from this society to work at the wash for the cleanup. Unfortunately, not many were able to show up that Saturday the 14th.
Other volunteers were made available by Mr. Teeters’ class, on the condition of extra credit for participants as an incentive for their efforts. Most of the recruiting efforts were done by the management team, even Caryn, for preparing the volunteer registrations. Then the students in the facilities management class were presented the opportunity to earn extra credit by working as free labor in a service project carried out by the management team, namely, the wash cleanup.
Names of the volunteers are included on the original forms in the annex.


Now for the interesting part where everyone wants to figure out their grade
Evaluations
For grading criteria, each student will receive two grades for the Wash Cleanup, one for the team effort, and one for individual effort based on the remarks of other members of the same team.
Each team is graded on a 15 point basis by the management team, where a 7.5 evaluation is passing, and a 15 is perfect.
The 15 points are originated from 3 grading criteria:
• 5 points for pre-wash report = 200 to 300 words describing in detail what the group plans to achieve, and how they will coordinate their efforts.
• 5 points for wash clean up participation (every team gets these 5 points since they were all represented by at least one member of their team at the day of the clean up)
• 5 points for post-wash report = 200 to 300 words (which for most tuned upwards towards 400 to 500 words) describing in detail what the group achieved through their planning, how their efforts compared to their original plans, and the strengths and weaknesses in the project. Lastly, what they would have done differently should be included.
Additionally, each team member will evaluate his or her team members in a 5 point basis.
Each team members’ points will be averaged and added to the team’s evaluation given by team 5.
Example:
Team 5 evaluation for Volunteer group: 8
Pre-wash report: 3
Wash Clean up: 5
Post-wash report: 0
Volunteer group’s evaluation of Dov:3+2+2= 7 | 7/3= 2.3 | 2.3+8= 10.3(out of 15)
HOWEVER, anybody that did not participate in the clean up, and had no excuses, does not get the points from team’s 5 evaluations and is only left to the peer evaluation on a scale of 5 points. The average of the other team members’ evaluation will be the points assigned to the individual’s grade


FINAL CONCLUSION>>
With the original papers in the back to look at, you can see how we planned and managed our time and resources. I believe we were successful in the overall objectives. Even though we could have some more to make the event perfect, but for a first time at event planning and execution our results were not bad. No one was hurt, the wash was cleaned, all of the teams participated to some extent in their nominal duties, and we gained experience. Of all of the setbacks during the planning and execution stage, the greatest was the need to rely on others, as the management team could not do everything. If given the opportunity to perform the wash cleanup again some of the changes that I would see to that are made is the designation of more specific duties and the division of the management team to cover the supervision, so to say, of such specific duties; such as, a public relations person that would only worry about getting media coverage for our event and spreading the word throughout campus of our efforts. Another specific responsibility would be a waste manager to oversee the extraction and relocation of the waste removed from within the wash where they would ensure the waste was sorted into the proper categories to be recycled. Another person that I would add is a set-up and tear-down supervisor that would inspect the upkeep of the equipment used, before and after the cleanup, while also ensuring the cleaning area and bathrooms are tidy after the project. And lastly I would have a bookkeeper/ records and attendance keeper, where they would have all of the cell phone numbers and email addresses of everyone in both classes to keep in contact with the right people in a timely manner. These few changes would make this project stronger, along with the group comments in their perspective areas. Even with our weaknesses, I feel good about what I did, and what everyone has accomplished.
Date: December 31, 2009 Views: 7003 File size: 58.0kb, 708.1kb : 2499 x 1661
Hours Volunteered: 330
Volunteers: 66
Authors Age & Age Range of Volunteers: 21 & 19 to 65
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