Please take a look at our blog for updates on how students are doing on their trip.

The Trip

There will be 15 students going on a trip that will give them the opportunity to experience the environmental impact caused by human activity on the US coastline.  A majority of the funding for this trip has been provided by Choice Schools Associates, the management company for WMAES.  The students are juniors and seniors at West Michigan Academy of Environmental Science.  In order to go on the trip, they must keep up their grades, and avoid disciplinary problems throughout the year.  There will also be several chaperones on the trip. Students will leave Thursday, May 5^th from Grand Rapids on a bus to Chicago, where they will catch a flight to Houston, then drive to Galveston to start their service project. As part of this project, they will be working with three different area charities.  The focus will be on preserving the coastline and marsh areas.

Galveston Bay Foundation (GBF)

This is the largest group the students will be working with.  GBF works primarily with preserving coastline, marsh, and surrounding areas.  They make people aware of the needs of the ecosystem by having big volunteer days where people work with oyster restoration around the bay.  Students will be assisting with environmental clean up of an inland area that was hit my Hurricane Ike. They will remove debris to prevent invasive species from living in the area. They will also be assisting with Oyster Restoration by bagging oyster shells that will be hung on the pier.

Artist Boat

This foundation works primarily with youth in area.  They do kayak tours where students can work in shallow water and marsh areas to restore the bay. This tour will provide education on the salt-water marsh ecosystem.  Students will also have the chance to identify different species and plants in the Galveston Bay area.

Night Activities

There will also be night activities so students can understand the culture in these areas.  These will be one or two hours, and have yet to be determined.  Check back often to see what students will be doing.

Preparations

Students in the Service Learning Class at WMAES have been handling all preparations for this trip. They are using these preparations as their class project. They are finding places for the group to eat, managing the budget, etc.  They did a project to find fundraising ideas, they presented these ideas to the trip coordinators, and the coordinators then picked which fundraisers to do.  The Service Learning Class also did research on organizations for them to work with on the trip.

Fundraising