Ripple: The Center for Education and Ecosystem Studies, leads Butte students in community clean-ups & a stormwater festival
Ripple: The Center for Education and Ecosystem Studies led over 550 students in community clean-ups around their schools and along the Blacktail and Silver Bow Creeks during the second half of May. The students collectively removed 116 bags of waste from Butte’s stormwater.
Ripple organized community clean-ups with 23 classes from 7 Butte schools.
Each class was armed with bags, reflective vests, gloves, and trash grabbers. They were tasked with collecting garbage from around their schools, neighborhoods, waterways and roads. Adults were present to supervise the collection and to handle any glass or other hazardous materials that required special attention. Adults were present to supervise the collection and handle any potentially unsafe materials.
“I was blown away by the trash students were able to find in fields and creeks that seemed clean at first glance,“ said Sam Klusmeyer, Ripple’s Communications and Outreach Coordinator.
The Butte High Career Center alone removed over 20 bags of trash from Blacktail Creek. West Elementary braved the highway entrance behind their school to collect insulation, frying pans, tires, and other unusual roadside trash.
“They were so excited and proud to remove pollution from their communities. They were ready to be active stewards. It was incredible to see,” Sam continued.
The participating students were all rewarded with pizza from Pizza Ranch for their hard work.
Whittier Elementary, Emerson Elementary, West Elementary, Butte High Career Center, Kennedy Elementary, Margaret Leary Elementary, and Butte Central Catholic Elementary School all participated in the community clean ups.
Ripple, formerly the Clark Fork Watershed Education Program (CFWEP), has been leading similar clean-ups for years. This year, they added an educational Stormwater Festival at Father Sheehan Park, to the schedule.
234 students gathered at Father Sheehan Park on May 22nd to learn about the impacts of stormwater on the environment and about watershed science. The stormwater festival reinforced everything the kids learned during their time cleaning up Butte. The festival was covered by news outlets like KXLF, KPAX, NBC Montana, and the Montana Standard.
“Butte is the headwaters of the Columbia Watershed. So, we have a lot of responsibility. Everything we do impacts somebody downstream,“ Rayelynn Brandl, Ripple’s Executive Director, stated.
The Stormwater Festival is another way to cement that reality in the minds of Butte’s students.
“Students who gain knowledge of stormwater pollution through hands on experience share what they have learned with their families — effectively educating both the students and adults in our community. Incorporating stormwater education in a fun and meaningful way to build a sustainable future for everyone,” Stated Karla Perala, a fourth-grade teacher at Margaret Leary Elementary School.
Stormwater, which is not treated, requires constant attention to combat pollution. Stormwater pollution, or the pollutants that wash into storm drains, creeks, and other bodies of water, is the most pervasive types of pollution Montana citizens contend with every day.
Ripple, BSB Parks and Recreation, and Water Environmental Technologies hope that this festival will inspire Butte’s next generation of environmental stewards to take action when they see stormwater pollution in the future.
Ripple would like to thank the following sponsors and partners for making this year’s clean-ups and Stormwater Festival possible: Clearwater Credit Union, Water and Environmental Technology (WET), Butte-Silver Bow Parks and Recreation, Butte-Silver Bow Stormwater, Pizza Ranch, Butte’s Ace Hardware, the Butte-Silver Bow Chamber of Commerce, the Montana Department of Transportation, Butte Auto, Montana Technological University, Montana’s Natural Resource Damage Program, KBOW, and KOPR.