Patricia Gutierrez

Nicholas Pasterino

Environmental Science

24 January 2019

TGS case: healthy or not?

Throughout the school year we have examined on the health of our school to determine

whether our not our tgs campus is in fact healthy or not. We determined this by focusing on our

five indicators of environmental health. The indicators of our focus being biodiversity, plant and

animal communities, air quality, water quality and human impacts. The focus of this paper is to

see if my opinion has changed since the beginning of the year if I still believe our TGS campus is

healthy or if my mind has changed due to the data we collected. My opinion has indeed stayed

the same I still believe our campus is healthy. The first indicator I will introduce is human

impacts and how us as humans are harming our own campus. The second indicator being plant

and animal communities and if we were able to discover diversity. The third is air quality, the

fourth water quality and the last indicator biodiversity.

The Greene School has been officially up and running since 2010. Many students have

walked these halls before us and many students will continue to walk these halls as years go by.

We now have access to land to enter and discover that students before didn't have the

opportunity of doing before, with this opportunity we take advantage of what we have and

explore. Students here consider TGS as a safe place somewhere that some people would in fact

call home. Were diverse and come from many different locations. Many may believe were

careless on how we treat our school. I believe otherwise when we attend lunch we have the
freedom of eating outside when people leave their trash, someone on our campus is always

willing to lend a hand pick it up and toss it into the trash or the recycling bin. As a stewardship

project a crew went into our woods and picked up any trash they discovered they then created

safe trails that students of TGS could enjoy. Along with this another stewardship project students

participated in was creating the outdoor classroom that english teachers, history teachers, etc put

to use to run a regular class like we would inside. The outdoor classroom is created out of wood

logs that students had to help build together to maintain a beneficial place of learning while

enjoying the outdoors. None of the stewardship projects students decided on doing didn't harm

our campus but in fact helped make it more of a beneficial environment.

Our campus is located in the woods, therefore we have lots of open land for the plant and

animal communities. When we go on walks in the trails you see many different kinds of animals

such as frogs, snakes, squirrels, chipmunks, toads, fish, ducks, geese, worms and birds. Our

campus is the proper home for these animals we leave them in peace and they have tons of land

to roam around in. This is beneficial so that the animals do not feel restricted into one area.

When we attended field work at save the bay one of the workers had said, “if animals do not feel

safe or feel like they are lacking resources they need they'll leave.” Every animal that lives

within our campus plays an active role. For example, The worms in our environment are also

helpful by increasing the amount of air and water that gets into the soil. The plants within our

campus are also very diverse, we went out on one class to identify what we have on our campus.

I recall having a widespread of different plants and a diverse amount of trees. Its beneficial to

have diversity because that means we aren't lacking biodiversity.

Air quality plays a major role in our community. The main reason why our air quality is
healthy/beneficial to the environment is because the lichen we have is everywhere. Lichen

converts carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through photosynthesis into oxygen, which we all

need to be able survive. You can find so much lichen across our trees and rocks. If we had a lack

of lichen I believe our air quality wouldn't be in the good condition it is. Lichen also isn't just

beneficial for us humans it is also beneficial for the animals on our campus. Small animals such

as squirrels and birds eat lichen as a food source. Lichen also provides great camouflage for

small insects. The reason why our air quality is such a reliable source is because the lichen we

have on our camus would never be completely gone. Lichen grow on empty rocks due to ​ its

death and dissolution, there becomes a fold of mineral and organic matter on which allows the

lichen to grow in its place. We focused on an experiment of our air quality indoors and outdoors

perspective based. This graph is a

representation of the individual classrooms students chose to complete their task in. The graph

shows the numbers that were pulled and you are able to see fusaro's room had the highest

particulate count while the nurse's office and on the branch had the lowest.

The water quality in our campus is in fact healthy. I know this due to the experiments we

completed for our wetland, stream and pond that we have access to on our campus.
 This graph is a representation of the turbidity

levels that we recorded for each area we experimented with. The yellow is for the wetland, red

the stream and blue is the pond. Why is turbidity so important and what is it? According to

environmental professionals, “ Turbidity is a measure of the amount of suspended material in the

water. It describes the clarity of water. Suspended materials in water, such as clay, silt, and algae,

reduce water clarity and cause turbidity.” ( Fondriest staff, 2010,p.1)

The last indicator we focused on was biodiversity. I believe we have great biodiversity, as a

campus we have lots of diverse plants which means greater benefits. We also have greater

species this ensures natural sustainability for all life forms. The tree unit we did in class helped

me ensure that we did have biodiversity. Being able to discover the diverse amount of trees we

have on our campus was amazing to see. Having biodiversity within our ecosystem is beneficial

because our healthy ecosystem can withstand and be able to recover from disasters. If we were

lacking biodiversity we would know because that would mean we don't have diverse plants,

animals, trees, insects within our campus. In an article I read it says, “ Whether in a village in the

Amazon or a metropolis such as Beijing, humans depend on the services ecosystems provide,

such as fresh water, pollination, soil fertility and stability, food and medicine. Ecosystems

weakened by the loss of biodiversity are less likely to deliver those services, especially given the

ever-growing human population.” ( Julie shaw, 2018,p.1) Another main reason why maintaining
our biodiversity the way it is now is important for keeping a good ecosystem for years to come.

In conclusion I believe our campus is healthy. To continue having a healthy campus we

must stay on top of taking care of our school. Such as sticking to our routine with recycling and

throwing trash out. Not harming our campus, continue to create great things like the outside

classroom. Planting flowers in our garden in the near future so we can have beautiful flowers

growing in the springtime. I believe the data that we collected with all the experiments we've

done this year is to what has lead me to believe that our campus is healthy. Our animals are

happy, the air quality is good, water quality is good, we have a diverse stable plant and animal

communities and the humans of our campus are being kind to our ecosystem.
Resources

Franklin, J. (2018, December 18). Journal of Biodiversity & Endangered Species Open Access.

Retrieved from

https://www.omicsonline.org/ArchiveJBES/most-viewed-articles-biodiversity-endangered-specie

s-open-access.php

​Wilson, K. (2014, June). Plant Growth Peer Review Journals. Retrieved from

https://www.omicsonline.org/plant-growth/peer-review-journals.php

Shaw, J. (2018, November 21). Why is biodiversity important? – Human Nature -

Conservation... Retrieved from

https://blog.conservation.org/2018/11/why-is-biodiversity-important/

Shah, A. (2014, January 19). Why Is Biodiversity Important? Who Cares? Retrieved from

http://www.globalissues.org/article/170/why-is-biodiversity-important-who-cares