In celebration of World Water Monitoring Day on September 18th, our founder Nicolas Lama hosted our World Water Monitoring Day Event, Saturday September 14th!
On Friday, Nicolas gave a presentation at his high school's assembly to his entire student body. In it, he talked about the EarthEcho Water Challenge, how water monitoring is conducted, and the importance of each of us taking an active role in protecting our waterways.
On Saturday morning, September 14th, Nicolas led a group of high school volunteers through an interactive water monitoring session at John D MacArthur State Park. Volunteers learned how to monitor different parameters such as temperature, turbidity, pH and dissolved oxygen, and use these results for discussing strategies to take action to help protect our local water resources.
Then, volunteers got a chance to hear from the state park's rangers about the existing environmental programs at the park, such as monthly clean ups, water quality programs, and an oyster restoration project.
Nicolas then led the group in a marine debris clean up in the park's mangrove forests. The team took a tram trolley across the state park, then journeyed into the dense mangrove ecosystems, finding an astounding amount of plastics and trash stuck in the the mangrove roots. In just over an hour of cleaning up, our team collected an astounding 74 pounds of marine debris found stuck in the mangrove ecosystems! So amazing and satisfying to be able to quantify such an incredible contribution to protecting our environment.
Our founder Nicolas Lama said about the event: "We, the youth generation of this planet, are the future, and I am so glad I had a chance to lead my peers in a project to help protect our earth!"
All in all, it was an incredible day of civic engagement and environmental activism. Thank you to all the volunteers who came out early Saturday morning to help protect our planet. Thank you to all the team at EarthEcho International and Xylem Watermark for their incredible support. Thank you to John D MacArthur State Park for helping in the planning process of this wonderful day.
