A Model For Service-Learning

Odyssey School became the first Clean Creek Campus and set a benchmark for the program. There latest service project includes removing Ragweed, a non-native invasive plant, along Waller Creek and planting native plants to help restore the creek bed. Click here to check out a news 8 feature of  Odyssey marking stormdrains and caving. Click here to read a KXAN news  feature on Odyssey cleaning  Town Lake.

The below poem best captures the monthly field trips to local creeks and the rewards of service-learning. The poem is written by Ron Blanton Odyssey School teacher in collaboration with students Matthew Lawyer and Connor Healy.

Creek Cleaner’s Bag O’ Rhymes
Creek Cleaner’s are coming to a park near you,
Picking up the trash some thoughtless person threw,
Learning about the Aquifer, water cycle too,
Helping the environment is what the Creek Cleaners do
Finding lots of pieces of dis-carded time,
Out of someone’s sight, out of someone’s mind
Helping Mother Earth makes us all feel good,
Hiking along the creek bank, climbing through the wood
It’s interesting in a gross sort of way,
To see the kind of junk that people throw away
Pieces of a car, bottles and cans,
Tons of plastic bags buried in the sand
Styrofoam cups floating in the creek,
Things that smell funky, things that really reek
Cigarette butts, boom boxes, someone’s underwear,
Hope they don’t need this stuff, hope they start to care
It’s dropped on the ground and over time it sinks,
Down to the watershed, the supply from which we drink
So if you have the chance, and even if it’s hard,
Do everything you can for creeks, get a Creek Cleaner Award!