Jennifer led us on a virtual tour of the exhibit “What to do with all that Poo?” at the Gates Foundation Discovery Center. We learned about how proper sewage is extremely important to have clean water, and how having an improper waste disposal system can be harmful to the environment. This can cause up to 700,000 childhood deaths each year.
We also learned some fun facts related to the topic. One thing was that squat toilets are more common than western toilets, which surprised me. We also learned that Sir Thomas Crapper invented the toilet in the 1880s.

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Jennifer Bombardier obtained her M.A. in Environmental Conservation Education from New York University. She has taught educational programs at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. She is currently the Education Manager for the Lower East Side Ecology Center.

This interview was very informative. We learned many pieces of valuable information. One thing interesting I learned was that areas that are flooded and more prone to hurricanes are at risk.

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We had an interview with Linda Escalante. Escalante is a renowned environmental expert in the United States. She promotes strong relationships with state and local elected officials, partner organizations, coalitions, and other stakeholders.

We learned lots of new interesting information during this interview. For one thing, the less water that’s available, the more concentrated the chemicals in the water. We need to find substitutes for certain products that produce an excessive amount of pollution.

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My teammates and I interviewed Sofia Zuberbuhler-Yafar. She is Program Director for the Sustainable Infrastructure Unit with the New York City Department of Design and Construction. She manages design contracts and ensures the on-time delivery of NYC’s Department of Environmental Protection’s various multi-million-dollar city-wide green infrastructure contracts.

Something interesting that we learned is that when there is a lot of rain, more pollution builds up. Water pollution is not all caused by man-made objects, but also natural occurrences. Also, the more resources you use to combat pollution, the more you’re contributing to climate change, so we need to put more work into both to solve this circle of issues

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Last week in school my group presented their social justice project 101. This was our first attempt at sharing initial research with our peers. I wasn’t very nervous at all because I did my reading and had worked on the slides. Personally, this was my major reaction to the articles I read, “In the US, more than 7 people die from violence per hour. That’s about 61,000 violence-related deaths yearly. The fact that more people globally die yearly from using bad water is shocking and horrible.”

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