Pick up your dog's poop and recycle to stay healthy, students learned

WARREN

Along the banks of the Mahoning River, fourth-graders in Warren City Schools became more keenly aware of a resource most of us take for granted — water.

Using a model of a typical hillside of fields and homes, Kelly Hardval, education coordinator for the Trumbull Soil and Water Conservation District, asked students to take turns with a small handful of mini chocolate chips. She asked them to sprinkle a few on the green space to represent the “poop” from farm animals and pets.

She sprinkled fine sand on the hillside to represent pollutants such as bug killers, weed killers, trash and motor oil. Then she sprinkled water on the model to show how those pollutants work their way into the streams and other waterways.

The demonstration and others were part of the 13th annual Waters Festival in Perkins Park that continues today. About 150 Warren students are participating each day.

“How many of you have a dog or a cat?” Hardval asked the students, who were seated under one of the park’s pavilions. “We have our own little herd of animals,” she said. “We need to think about their waste, too. It gets in the rain and gets in the lakes and streams and goes into Mosquito Creek. We don’t want it in our water,” she said.

“It may not be fun, but pick it up. Clean up after your dog.”

“Ever see litter in the roadside ditch?” she asked the children. “We need to think about putting our trash in the proper recycling bins. We can recycle pretty much everything. Styrofoam is about the only thing you have to put in the trash can.”

Read more of the lessons students learned about what they should be doing in their environments to stay healthy in Wednesday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.