Invasive Species Dig
For this live event, I organized an invasive species dig were students on campus were able to participate in the removal of harmful plant life around the area.
This project is significant to me because I felt as if I was enacting true change in the environment rather than hoping things would get fixed themselves. I chose to pursue this specific topic because of the interest shown by my AP Environmental Science professor last year. She discussed invasive species and their negative impact on the environment in great detail and sparked my interest in helping maintain the greenery around me. The specific problem trying to be addressed was that there are lots of wineberries growing in the greater Philidelphia area that are using up nutrients and affecting the growth of native species. To combat this, we dug them up by their roots to ensure they did not regrow again next year and disposed of the waste.
In order to plan this event, I worked with a few of my friends also interested in the environment as well to help spread the word and attend. I also printed flyers for each of the three digs to put around campus to inform the student body. The biggest challenge was determining if there was going to be a turnout of students at each of the sites. I decided to reevaluate after the first dig to ensure that the turnout was increasing each time as we faced some difficulties with attendance for the first dig. To fix that situation I printed out more fliers and advertised more on social media and the turnout increased each time.
The first dig did not get nearly as many attendees as we only had about 5 people show up, however, after advertising more the numbers increased to 10 people and then about 20. I learned how to plan a successful event through trial and error. We were able to clear up a significant portion of the forest by removing the invasive species which was a huge achievement.
My main takeaways from this event are how to act in the moment and how to use networking and resources effectively. As there was difficulty getting people to turnout I turned to many of my friends and encouraged them to reach out to their other friends until we got a large group of people. Had I done this originally we would have been able to pull even more weeds, but it was a great learning experience.
Project Year: 2021
Completed by: Autria Aidun
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