World Conservation Service Projects

[Vigil-Hiker]

I need some easy to do ideas for a service project for my wolves to earn their World Conservation Badge. One idea I had was to make litter bags for them to keep in their parents cars to put trash in. Not sure if have them decorate paper bags for this or have them sew cloth bags that they can put in a "liner" bag that gets thrown out.

 

If we do cloth bags, I need a design so can off of a head rest to be usable in back seat and not kicked around the floor.

 

Any one have any other ideas. I got two weeks until last pack meeting for the year.

 

YiS,

VH

[Robert_ND]

Ok - this is kind of an off-beat idea and I haven't thought it all the way through so maybe it stinks . More importantly I've never done this so for all I know it won't work ...

 

Disposing of garbage is a great theme for a conservation award but when I think of conservation I think of the "reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra. So I'd like to incorporate at least one of those into a conservation project.

 

So my suggestion is to make the garbage bag holder using a pair of old pants. First figure out how large of an opening you want in the top. I would imagine about a foot long - not too big but big enough to take a plastic bag. Next find some adult pants that are at least 24 inches around the waist (that should leave about a 12 inch hole when pulled tight). If you can find a 48" waist you could cut them vertically in half to have a pair of 24 inch pockets.

 

Now cut off the legs and sew up any open areas (leg holes, the sides if you cut 48" in half, etc). You could either pre-sew them for the boys, let them sew them (if they are ready for that) or let the boys use a fabric glue/tape.

 

Now that these are sewing up you have the "pocket" ready to go (speaking of pockets - it would be cute to have the pants pocket visible when they are hanging [i bet kids stick stuff in it! maybe glue them shut too]). All you have to do now is go to a sewing center or wal-mart and get some eyelets. Punch two eyelets into the pants - one at each corner of the top opening. You can either put the eyelets so the pants hang open or you could crimp both sides of the pants together so it stays more or less closed.

 

Now that you have the eyelets in all you need to do put some rope through, have the boys decorate them and hang them over the passanger side head rest.

 

You could even put a rope belt through the belt loops and allow the pocket to be "tied down" - not sure if that serves a purpose yet but it might be helpful for holding the bag in or keeping garbage from flying. There are those sliding crimpers (I don't know what they are called - they are on hamper bags, jacket hoods, etc) - you could use one of those to make adjusting the tension on the rope strap and the belt loop rope easier.

 

Maybe this is a bad idea - I don't know yet. But on the surface it seems easy enough for wolves, is in the spirit of the conservation award, is functional, is cheap (we all have old pants) and should be do-able in 45-90 minutes (unless you use a fabric glue that needs a long time to setup) depending on the boys.

 

Of course there is the old stand-by of picking up a park or hanging a bird house, too.

 

Robert.

 

 

 

[EagleBeaver]

I understand a service project to be some activity that provides a service to others and, in this case, promotes conservation. It seems to me that making a garbage bag would be a great den activity, but not a service project for the World Conservation award.

To earn this award, I took a Webelos den to a wild prairie with the US Fish & Wildlife to harvest prairie grass seed which the USFW then used to reclaim other areas. That den then taught the rest of their pack how to do it the next month when the whole pack did a seed harvesting project.

The 'old stand-bys' of cleaning a park or trail are easy to plan, get scouts outside, and have an obvious result when they see they've got a pile of garbage. Quick calls to the city parks program, US Forest Service, local churches, or school should provide an interesting project that fits your group size whatever it is.

 

Paul

 

[Robert_ND]

True - a service project should involve service to others. My reading of the award requirments doesn't imply it needs to be a service project but rather a conservation project.

 

I guess the question would be what constitutes a conservation project.

 

On one hand, one could argue that making the auto garbage bags has the goal of reducing road-side litter and educating people on proper garbage disposal (would you rather clean the park or prevent it from getting dirty?).

 

On the other hand I imagine more people would make the argument that a conservation project should have an immediate and measurable impact on the environment (park cleanup, bird houses, gathering seeds, etc).

 

Perhaps a combination of the two that satisifies both groups would be to have the kids do a road-side cleanup, measure the amount of garbage they find (by the # of bags), discuss the impact of that on the environment and then make the auto garbage bags once they fully appreciate the need. 3-4 hours of work.

 

Robert.

 

[Vigil-Hiker]

Requirement 7 for Wolf requires a community clean-up. We picked up litter in part of the school yard where they go to school. Teens sometimes hang out there and just leave their trash and sometimes smash glass bottles. The adults picked the glass pieces.

 

One of the boys picks up litter in the church parking lot whenever he is there, and another picked up litter in a park by his home. Both in addition to the school yard work. Do I count those personal clean ups as their project, or do I still need a den project?

 

The recylcing pants into a garbage bag holder is interesting, but we are working on limited resources and short on time.

[Vigil-Hiker]

We made ended up litter bags out of recylced paper bags.

 

We folded down top edge 2-3 times to stiffen it up and added a long pipe cleaner under that lip of folds for better rigidity. Then used a hole punch to make holes all around. Then laced twine through to hold pipe cleaner in and creat a large loop on one side to hang over headrest. Bags were then decorated based on do not litter/trash your trash theme. Bag can be used as completed or insert a small trash bag to hold trash(better for wet items) and reuse as a holder.