Eco-tip: Public Works Week engages local students with unique displays
Last week was Public Works Week, and at the Ventura County Government Center on Wednesday more than 1,300 students from local schools throughout the county visited dozens of booths and displays, many of which were focused on the environment.
The county’s Integrated Waste Management Division, where I work, set up an 8-foot-long conveyor belt. Volunteers took turns sorting recyclables, simulating work at material recovery facilities processing curbside recyclables. This not only reinforced lessons about which items are recyclable, but it also generated appreciation for the hard work of sorters, who do this difficult job for hours each day.
The chief executive office’s Sustainability Division divided waves of students into three groups, rotating between presentations about electric bicycles, electric cars and general environmental education. Offering prizes for correct answers to questions about energy conservation methods and other topics selected through a spin-the-wheel game, sustainability staff kept students engaged.
The Public Works Agency’s Watershed Protection staff demonstrated pervious concrete, allowing the public to pour water from a pitcher onto a block of concrete suspended over a plastic pool. Water cascaded through the concrete as staff explained the importance of allowing water to sink into landscapes, recharging underground aquifers, rather than running off and potentially carrying pollution from streets through storm drains to the ocean.
The agency’s Engineering Services Division had a similar message, with a demonstration of how planning for water infiltration makes development more sustainable. In one plastic tub, the display showed a miniature developed site with hard-packed soil and just a few planted spots. In another tub, the model featured more greenery. Water poured on the surface ran off the first and soaked into the second.
Attendees crowded around the creative and fun “Rock and Roll Sediment Transport” game invented and staffed by the Environmental Services section of the Watershed Protection District. Dice rolls determined whether cobble, boulders or gravel could move downstream to a beach, but a dam could block all progress.
Agencies outside Public Works and jurisdictions other than the county also participated. Sharing the booth with watershed protection, Elizabeth Burns of California Trout also hosted a game. Matching fish development stages to portions of ocean and river habitats emphasized the importance of land conservation and supported the watershed district’s message about the importance of removing Matilija Dam.
The city of Ventura’s Environmental Services Division brought a display of red worms and explained to attendees the benefits and methods of vermiculture, using a worm box to turn food scraps into valuable soil amendment. Sheriff, fire and emergency services workers displayed equipment and handed out promotional and educational items.
The Ventura County Transportation Commission was represented by its executive director, Martin Erickson, and Commissioner Jim White, who had at their booth the bicycles they rode to the event. VCTC also displayed a tow truck used as part of its Freeway Service Patrol. Funded by a $1 fee added by the state Department of Motor Vehicles to the registration of every vehicle in Ventura County, this patrol program roams local freeways, removing many causes of traffic backup. Patrollers provide a free gallon of gas to those who have run out, quickly change or inflate tires and tow stuck vehicles safely off freeways.
Staff of Athens Services, which contracts locally with the county and with the cities of Santa Paula and Thousand Oaks to provide refuse and recycling services, used picture flash cards to teach the lessons of which items belong in trash, recycling or organics curbside carts. Perhaps because of great prizes offered for correct answers, including toy trash trucks emblazoned with the Athens logo, kids were highly motivated to participate.
Athens also staffed a booth and displayed collection vehicles at the city of Thousand Oaks’ two-day celebration of Public Works Week, which brought over 1,200 guests, mostly school groups, to the city’s municipal service center on Rancho Conejo Road on May 21 and 22. As with the county event, heavy equipment displays were a highlight, but the city also featured a bus wash ride, graffiti removal demonstrations, water and wastewater learning stations and a ladybug display and giveaway.
David Goldstein, an environmental resource analyst with the Ventura County Public Works Agency, can be reached at 805-658-4312 or david.goldstein@ventura.org.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Eco-tip: Public Works Week engages local students with unique displays
