This past Thursday, May 27, was the last day of school at Skyline High School. This also means the program year for Skyline High’s Earth Team has come to an end, and it will certainly be a year to remember for the team.
This year was entirely remote, and the team held 33 after school meetings over Zoom. On top of those meetings, the team also met eight times on weekends over Zoom. The team only met in person a few times, and only a few team members were able to attend. This means many of the team members never met each other in person, which made for a challenging year that was ultimately exceedingly successful.
The team started off the year learning about the Climate Crisis and other local ecological issues. This was followed by professional development and the completion of several litter cleanups in student’s neighborhoods and local parks in order to protect local ecosystems. In total, the team managed to clean up almost 3,000 pieces of litter this year. Impressive!
The culmination of this year’s work was the team’s research project on the impact of litter on soil quality. Though the team was unable to find any conclusive results from their research, they still learned a lot and participated in a rigorous scientific study. They then presented their findings to professional scientists at the 2021 GLOBE Student Research Symposium on May 1. See our previous blogs for more information on this project.
As the team’s coordinator, I want to personally thank all team members for their hard work this year. It was a pleasure working with you all and you truly made this year of isolation fun and exciting with their positive attitude and humor. Have a great summer, Skyline High Earth Team 2020-2021!