Protect our Parks!

Students in Upper Arlington Spanish IV Honors classes just implemented a very creative and impactful service learning project aimed at making healthy and clean choices toward our environment. Students collaborated with Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks to develop a series of informational videos designed to encourage English & Spanish speaking park visitors help protect their parks. This project was designed as an initiative aimed at combating habits that contaminate the environment, a major global problem that ultimately affects the earth’s health and population.

Many in our society are unaware of the many and wide-ranging daily actions that cause excessive levels of damage to human and animal health, tropical rainforests, as well as the wider, global environment. By means of this service learning project, students had the opportunity to make meaningful and real-life application of the unit vocabulary they were learning in Spanish regarding the promotion of a clean and healthy environment. Students were able to fully understand the purpose of what they were learning while developing a sense of civic responsibility as they actively engaged their knowledge, leadership and interpersonal skills to undertake this local and global community need.

This seven part video series is titled “Protect Our Parks!” These videos are an adaptation of the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics’ seven core principles for enjoying parks responsibly. Footage for these videos were taken at Prairie Oaks and Battelle Darby Creek Metro parks. The principles highlighted within, however, are applicable to all 19 metroparks, all in which visitors are encouraged to “leave only footprints, and kill only time.”

YouTube playlists:   Protect our Parks!     ¡Proteja Nuestros Parques!

VIDEOS (English versions)         (SPANISH TEXT AND VIDEOS HERE)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_dSUDTuhsc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xikwsRjPXX8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T34f-DaeiqU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCbFLZOZfuU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRyC5n8xheE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnX5IYxasOA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPNDaM-bpPc