Girls Get Connected (GGC) girls has completed two very successful summer programs to help girls learn more about the environment. It helped them learn more about Boston’s urban ecology.

Girls Go Green

Girls Get Connected has been awarded a grant from the Boston Foundation’s StreetSafe program.  With this grant we worked with Boston Neighborhood Network to develop a half hour television show called “Girls Go Green,” about Boston’s urban ecology. The 11 high school girls spent four weeks working with their teacher, Adam Gooder, a Simmons MAT student and Connie Chan, a sophomore communications major at Simmons. The girls went out to the cities of Greater Boston and explored some environmental issues, such as trash, recycling, the Charles River and the habitats of the friendly white geese. Each student paired up and took responsibility to create one video segment about a specific topic of the environment. They conducted interviews with the mayor and directors of these organizations. These girls were very professional during the interviews, using the equipments, and the producing the videos. The four weeks were very productive for the girls and they each learned something new from this experience.

Technology @ the Crossroads

Girls Get Connected middle school girls from Mother Caroline Academy had completed a survey of trash found in the streets of Dorchester and Fenway. They had gone out to both the neighborhoods and explored the amount of trash that can be found on the streets. They used GPS (Global Positioning Systems) to find the coordinates of their exact location. With the coordinates, they had generated a map of the Dorchester and Fenway area to get a better sense of where the trash has been littered on the streets of Boston. With the maps, they were able to compare what kinds of trash were found and the amount of trash found in both neighborhoods.  They found some interesting facts about trash between the neighborhoods. There were a lot of similarities and differences in trash. Both neighborhoods had a large amount of cigarette butts, paper, bottles, newspapers — much of them can be recycled. But even though both neighborhoods had large amount of trash, the Fenway area was a lot cleaner than in Dorchester. After their investigation around the streets of both neighborhoods, they collected trash from trash bins in the Simmons science building and separated what kinds of trash can actually be recycled within the trash can. Results: 50% of the trash can be recycled. The students were amazed and want to encourage more people to recycle to save the environment.

Tags: careers, environment, girls go green, recycle, technology, technology @ the crossroads, trash

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