Chesapeake Bay Foundation
On November 21 and 22, 2019, forty Poly seniors went with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation on the Snowgoose boat for an all day excursion exploring the Inner Harbor waters and beyond. Students conducted water quality tests, dredged for oysters, bird watched, dissected an oyster, analyzed species biodiversity, and compared maps from the watershed. This experience gave students ideas for their own agents of change schoolyard habitat improvement plan.
Tree Baltimore & Baltimore Tree Trust
On November 15, 2019, Poly had our third installment of our Agents of Change speaker series. Alex Smith, shared out his story with 180 seniors at Poly. He talked about growing up on the west side and how after going to jail twice that he was able to turn his life around here in Baltimore. It was in jail that Alex became interested in gardening and landscaping. After getting out of jail, he worked different jobs and eventually became an entrepreneur that wanted to help those getting out of jail get a second and stable chance at life. Alex now owns and runs Division Street Landscaping while also working for Tree Baltimore and Baltimore Tree Trust and is also involved in various other endeavors to build up the Baltimore city workforce in urban gardening. Our seniors loved his honesty and real talk about how poverty and crime go hand in hand. Alex challenged our students to continue to achieve success despite their real life obstacles. Alex is truly an agent of change here in Baltimore. Alex is going to work with our Poly students to plant trees on campus.
National Aquarium
On October 25, 2019, 35 Poly students visited the aquarium to further investigate their impact on the Chesapeake Bay. Students also took a tour of the Baltimore Inner Harbor and learned about the various restorative practices being implemented by the city to save the Bay such as the oyster reef builds, Mr. Trashwheel, and the floating wetland habitats. This trip gave students various ideas for their Agents of Change schoolyard habitat improvement plans.
Sunrise Movement
The Sunrise Movement is a national group of young people working to fight climate change. The Sunrise Movement Baltimore came to Poly on January 9, 2020 to teach students about the Green New Deal and what students can do to take action in their community.
JHU Environmental Health Project
Poly partnered with the JHU Health Project. Master's and doctoral students at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health are working with important research projects that address many of the issues of global environmental change. Students with the program came to Poly and told students information about their environmental program and how they can get involved. Poly students then supported the JHU Health Project by implementing various monitoring systems at Poly such as air quality monitoring, planting seedlings, etc. Below is email correspondence between project members and Mr. Marinelli, Poly's science department head and Environmental Science teacher.
Maryland Sea Grant
Collaboration with Adam Frederick at Maryland Sea Grant (MDSG) has been instrumental in establishing our aquaponics program. Furthermore, a collaboration with MDSG to create a microplastics component in the Honors Biology II curriculum is in the works. You can read all about our partnership with MDSG by checking out the Baltimore Sun article written below:
www.baltimoresun.com/bs-hs-aquaculture-students-20171206-story.html
www.baltimoresun.com/bs-hs-aquaculture-students-20171206-story.html
Blue Water Baltimore
On Wednesday, February 12, 2020, Blue Water Baltimore worked with a group to prune young trees on the Poly/Western campus. Tree pruning involves removing dead limbs, cutting branches that are crossed or crowded or unbalanced, and is important to tree health and well-being. Good pruning helps to set up the tree for a healthy, strong future. Sidnee Wade, a senior, joined this pruning activity since she wants to work with trees as part of her senior Agents of Change Biology II project.