Reflection

We focused on how our community contributes to the pollution that affects our local water sources. While completing the Algae's Adventures project, we learned a lot of new things about our community and Lake Erie. Some of the things we learned made us upset and sad, but it also pushed us to educate ourselves on the problems our community is facing and how we can fix them. We wanted to educate people through our artwork. It is important to inform people of how runoff pollution and algae is negatively affecting Lake Erie and our water supply. We learned that farmers use toxic fertilizers that contain nitrogen and phosphorus and runoff pollution carries these toxins into streams where algae live. The streams flow into Lake Erie and the algae and toxins contaminate our drinking water. Now that we are aware of the negative effects of pollution, we will not buy soap or laundry detergent that contains phosphorus and we won't use toxic fertilizers in our yards. This art project allowed us to learn a lot about how pollution affects our community and we will continue to educate ourselves in the future.