Follow

• 

  Tony The Trash Turtle

  Brianna Frankina

  Pollution is both a global and local issue. Tony was created from marine debris found at Freddy Beach and East Point Sanctuary. If you look at Tony's shell, you will notice that it is constructed from pieces of plastic straws. If you want to support Tony and keep straws off the beach, you can pledge to skip the straw! Tony is a reminder that we must all be responsible and clean up our trash when we go to the beach!

• 

  Baby Bay And The Big, LOUD Ocean

  Kelcey Salois and Dominique Mellone

  This is a children's book that depicts some of the serious effects of noise pollution on marine organisms, especially larger mammals such as Baleen Whales. Through this little story about a baby whale and his mom, trying to find the rest of their pod amidst an ocean filled with noise pollution, we hope to spread awareness about this problem and provide hope to younger generations that if we work hard enough at protecting our oceans, we can provide a much nicer and safer life for the creatures that live within it.

• 

  Colin The Cormorant

  Chelsey Jankauskas and Samantha Schultz

  Colin the Cormorant was an art project created to represent the effects of pollution on local organisms, such as Colin the Cormorant. We hope by seeing this sculpture people think twice about how they dispose of their trash. Colin is made from trash collected at Fortunes Rocks Beach in Biddeford Pool. We chose to make a cormorant because we frequently see cormorants around the Biddeford Pool area and they are a seabird that has been impacted by various types of pollution (garbage, air pollution, etc.).

• 

  Ella SavesThe Beach

  Leena Aly and Maddie Hodgdon

  The intention of this project is to start educating children on the consequences of polluting our planet with seemingly harmless waste such as plastics. Many do not realize how small plastic objects can be fatal to many animals. We asked elementary school children to collect trash as part of their participation. Then the trash was used to make a poster featuring Ella the crab. This poster is paired with a children’s story book, where Ella and her animal friends are featured dealing with the consequences of littering. The story book depicts how people’s behavior in natural areas can harm innocent animals. In addition, the purpose of this project is to educate children on the importance of recycling and the wide presence of plastics in our lives.

• 

  ESmereldA's 1600 Feathers

  Corinne Casey, Ellen Wise, and Kendall Ericksen

  ESA’s 1,600 Feathers is a children’s story that was created in response to a Congress letter from August 2017 addressed to several members of the Committee on Natural Resources and Agriculture. This letter requested for the 1973 Endangered Species Act to be “modernized” in order to reduce the economic burdens it imposed on farmers and ranchers. They argued the existing ESA was a “clear failure” having only accomplished recovery and delisting of 42 out of the 1,652 plant and animal species under its protection. The intentions of our story were to highlight the endangered and threatened species that have successfully combat extinction since the 1970’s. We believe Congress’ narrow view of success fails to acknowledge that over the course of 4 decades 1,600 species might have become extinct, however, they are alive today due to the protections of the ESA. We chose the whooping crane as the protagonist of our story because it serves as a symbol of public awareness. It was one of the first species observed in the 20th Century that faced extinction. The successful recovery of the whooping crane, which faced population numbers as low in the teens, serves as a meaningful vessel to convey our tale of optimism and triumph brought about by the ESA.

• 

  Ocean Optimism

  Jenna Pannone, Madison Mark, and Crista Kieley

  In our class, Intro to Environmental Issues, we focused on marine mammals for a section. We chose to highlight two cases, the Hawaiian Monk Seal and the Vacquita, in which severely endangered species may have a chance at survival due to the work of highly dedicated individuals and organizations. We wanted to raise awareness of these species, the work being done, and the power we have to create change.

• 

  Saving Santa's Workshop

  Chase Kaupin and Elise Grabowski

  Our book is a story about an elf encouraging children to go eco-friendly in order to help the environment. Santa delivers gifts such as a reusable water bottle to get children involved. By helping the environment, Santa's workshop is going to be saved from melting ice caps! The goal of this book was to get children involved to help the environment.