♪ From my house to yours ♪ ♪ From Newark to the shore ♪ ♪ On big New Jersey family ♪ ♪ And we're Learning Live ♪ ♪ Learning Live, Learning Live ♪ - [Announcer] Support for this special educational program has been provided in part by RWJ Barnabas Health, NJM Insurance Group, the Fuel Merchants Association Of New Jersey, the National Research Alliance, by New Jersey Realtors, and the New Jersey Education Association, working to make public schools great for every child.

- All right Miss D, it's time for your daily affirmation.

I like my school, I like my teachers, I like my friends, I like my family, I like myself, I like learning, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and I can do anything.

Oh, hi New Jersey, I didn't see everyone there.

I'm just finishing my morning motivation because sometimes when I'm feeling overwhelmed and stressed, I have to remind myself to stay positive, because I can do anything with the right attitude, and you can too.

Monday through Friday nine a.m till one p.m, right here on NJTV, your New Jersey public media station.

You can watch lessons in math, language, arts, science, social studies, music, PE, art and more, for grades three through six.

But all ages are welcome to join.

A bunch of New Jersey teachers, the New Jersey Department of Education, the New Jersey Education Association, and NJTV partner up to make sure you are still learning, and make it pretty fun too.

So it's time to meet today's teacher and tune in to NJTV learning live.

(tranquil music) - Hi everybody, my name is Mrs Mason and I'm so excited to meet with you today.

I'm a teacher at Henry E. Harris Community School in Bayonne, New Jersey.

So in case you're not sure where Bayonne is, I can show you here.

If you look closely, you can probably find the region that you live in, right.

We have all different parts of New Jersey, towards the top, you can see that yellow sectio, with the star, we are located in Hudson County, all the way at the bottom tip of the county.

So, one of the things that makes Bayonne very unique is that we are a peninsula.

So how many people know what that is?

I'm sure some of you have heard that word before, I can show you what it is, it's actually a piece of land surrounded by water on three sides.

So if you take a look, that purple section is our city of Bayonne and it is right at the bottom tip of Hudson County.

It's surrounded by Newark Bay, the Kill Van Kull to the south and then we also have the Hudson River, which separates us from New York City.

So, ecology is what we're going to be talking about today.

And the reason why I showed where I'm from and what it looks is that ecology is very important to us, here in Bayonne, because of all the water that's surrounding us, it's very important that we keep our water ways clean for fishing and boating, so that our environment and our ecosystem is healthy for not just the humans, but also the other the species that live among us.

So, some of the words we're gonna start out with, I wanna go over to make sure we're all focused on the same things.

So ecology, I hope you guys know what some of that's about, ecology is the study of organisms in their environment.

So we're gonna be talking about that, and the environment with those organisms make up an ecosystem.

So our ecosystem in Bayonne, it doesn't just have people, but it also has some four legged friends, and some birds, some fish, some different types of cellular organisms and plants and trees, all kinds of different things like that.

So we have a pretty lush ecosystem that we're gonna talk about and how it's affected it by our actions.

We also have something that's important to remember, the more people and the more species that you have in your ecosystem starts to support a healthy biodiversity.

Healthy biodiversity is really important, what you wanna do is if your ecosystem is as healthy as it can be for that area and region of the state or country or world that you're in.

You will attract a huge diversity of plants and bugs and birds, different types of animals will start appearing.

And the more that you have in your area, supports your healthy ecosystem.

So I think of it this way, the more people we have in our town, we're very lucky we have a hugely diverse population, our school is very diverse and our students have friends from all different backgrounds, all different cultures, and they learn from each other and they share their cultures together.

So that makes a healthy ecosystem for our humans here in our school.

When I think about it that way, I start thinking about it in terms of the other animals and beings within our group and our ecosystem of our town.

So it's not just with people, it's not just with animals and plants, it's the entire caboodle.

Everything all together in the bubble is part of our ecosystem and our biodiversity, the more diverse we are, the more healthy of an ecosystem we have.

So those are some important points we're gonna talk about.

Water is a really important thing, since there's so much of it around Bayonne.

And I'm sure some of you guys too, around the state, have different amounts of water, and different amounts of foliage and trees and forests around where you live.

Some of us live in more rural areas, where there's farms, other people live in areas where there's beaches, so their ecosystem looks a little bit different.

We also have some students and some people from around our state that live in more of a forest, wooded area, maybe up in the north, by mountains, we have a lot of different options here in Bayonne, Bayonne, in New Jersey, so there's a little bit of everything for everybody, it's pretty cool.

Wherever part of the state that you've settled in, you're going to be able to get something different, and I love that kind of variety.

Here in Bayonne, we are right across from New York City, so we have a different type of biodiversity, and a different type of environment as well.

We have our parks and our trees, many people have backyards that are grassy or have different types of foliage and plants and gardens in them.

But for the most part, we have a lot of people living in a small amount of space, and many people commute to New York, and to different parts of the state, but mostly, we rely on public transportation, we have a lot of cars and we have a lot of people.

So our homes, for the most part, are two family homes, three family homes, and four family homes.

We have some apartment buildings, we also have some one family homes as well, but if you think about it, there's a lot of people living in a small amount of space so we're kind of stacked on top of each other, and we do have a lot of sidewalks and concrete and a lot of cars.

So being that we have all this water also, it's important to make sure that our lifestyle and our practices are as healthy as they can be, to keep the area from getting polluted and staying as healthy as possible.

So another facet of where we live, that's very important to our biodiversity, is our combined sewer overflow.

That's the system that we have that takes care of all of our water and our sewage.

So, when we think about this, when we wash our dishes, we take our showers, we flush our toilets, we do all these different things, it's really important to know that that water is now water that's dirty.

If you washed your clothes in it, you don't wanna drink it, it needs to be cleaned.

So this water goes down, I'm gonna show you that map again, of the state, because this is important.

If you look closely, what happens is our water starts out at the star here, and when it needs to be cleaned, it goes all the way up into Passaic Valley, in this area, you see Passaic County up there?

There's a place called the Passaic Valley Sewer Commission, and what they do is they're in charge of cleaning all the water.

So it gets pumped up to there, they clean all the water and make it perfect again.

And then the water comes all the way back down, here to Bayonne, and we have over 30 outflow points.

These important points are where the clean water comes and it goes back out into the rivers.

So since we have so much water around us, it's really important for us to keep that water as clean as humanly possible.

So that works out great, we are not the only community with a CSO, and we're also not the only community with outflow points.

There are a few other outflow points in New Jersey, Trenton, is a community that has many outflow points, it has a similar concern, Camden and Gloucester City, these places are right by the water, so when the clean water comes back, it gets pumped out, it goes out to their waterways.

And after its been cleaned, it's safe to go back into the natural waterways.

The other cities in our area that pump their dirty water up to Passaic Valley Sewage Commission, that has to get it cleaned and have it come back down include Bayonne, of course, Kearny, Jersey City, Harrison, Newark, Elizabeth, Perth Amboy, and Patterson, so they're all in that same water table, in the same watershed.

So, if you're from one of those communities, maybe you have a little bit you can relate to with what I'm talking about.

This system for us, works perfectly throughout the year, and it's actually a really good system.

The only problem is that when we get heavy rain, sometimes the summer time, there's the seasonal thunderstorms that come, and I'm sure some of you have experienced that, when all of a sudden the skies get really dark, we start getting some extra thunder and we're getting a little extra lightening, and then the skies open up and the water comes, the rain comes right down.

And sometimes it comes down faster than the system can take care of it, because at the same time, we are putting our regular water from washing dishes, washing clothes, all that's going down and it's being cleaned and trying to get pumped up to Passaic Valley, but now we have an incredible amount of water that came naturally from the sky and just came right down out of nowhere.

So we have an issue now, we have double the amount of water, and our system can't always handle it.

So what has to happen is, the water has nowhere to go, it starts to flood.

Some of you may live in communities where you've had some flooding, maybe it happens around your home, maybe it happens around your school, and then what ends up happening in the winter, if you get any flooding, sometimes it turns to ice, if it's extra cold.

So we have this problem with the extra water, if the water has nowhere to go, sometimes it also overflows when it's still dirty, or it takes the dirt from the streets, oil that has dripped from the cars, maybe some trash that was in a trash can, but got blown around, maybe some micro plastics that got crushed in these little pieces that didn't quite make it to the garbage, these all get taken up, they go into the water that's flooded, and sometimes it goes over and back into the clean waterways that we have.

So we have to be very careful about this.

And this problem is not just something that one person deals with, it's something that the whole city deals with.

So we all wanna make sure we're doing our part, to help support this.

So here's where you come in, now that we're aware of this issue that we have, as a result of too much rainfall, while using a CSO in certain neighborhoods, we wanna make sure that we can help prevent flooding.

Now, even if your community doesn't use a CSO, you can still be a big part of the solution.

Because we're talking about different ways to save water, and make sure that our water is clean.

So this applies to everyone around the entire state, because we wanna make sure that we are focusing on a keeping a clean ecosystem for the humans, the animals, for everybody in the area.

So, today we're gonna start with a checklist, we're gonna make one together and we're construct it as we learn about all these different ways to kind of pay attention more to how the water floods and when the rain comes and different activities and things we can do.

The reason why we're using a checklist, some of you may already use a checklist for some of your things, it is a fantastic organizational tool.

There are things that happen as you get older, and as you start getting through your different grades, where you have more responsibilities, maybe you have a little more homework, maybe you have extra things with sports or music, and things after school.

You really wanna make sure that what you're doing, you don't miss something, you don't wanna forget a rehearsal, you don't wanna show up late at practice, you have to make sure that your homework is ready for the next day, or that you've done your studying for a test.

So what we do is sometimes you write things down in your homework pad, right?

Well, this is going to be another way to make it another type of list.

When you go to the grocery store too, it's the same thing, I can't remember every single item, maybe your parents write down a grocery shopping list, so these are gonna some things, we're gonna list some really important things we can do.

And you don't have to worry about it on a regular day, but then, when it rains, you go to your checklist, and say, okay how can I help the situation?

You can also share some of this information too, with your friends and family members and neighbors, and this will make a huge impact on the amount of flooding and the amount of healthy water and waterways that you have in your neighborhood.

So, let's get started from the beginning, take a couple of minutes, if you need a pen or pencil, get maybe to something to write with, a notebook, a piece of paper, you could use a crayon, you could highlighters, you could use your favorite maker, you could write each one in a different color, because this is a list that you're gonna make that's unique to you, so it helps you remember the best that you can.

So, now that you have your writing materials and your arts and crafts stuff or whatever you need to make this list, we are going to create it together and we're going to learn a lot.

So the first thing we're gonna write at the top is rainy day checklist.

And our rainy day checklist is going to be a fantastic tool to help us remember the important things we need to do, when we have any sort of extra flooding, or we need to alleviate some of the pressure on our overtaxed CSO.

So, the first thing that we're gonna talk about is gonna be washing clothes.

So everybody has clothes, we all have washing machines, sometimes we go to the laundromat to go do our clothes, some people, I know back in the olden days, they didn't have washing machines, so some people were washing them in the tub in the back, and that works great too.

But whatever you do, you're using a significant amount of water, to do cleaning.

So you're gonna wanna write down this, number one, washing clothes, I'll tell you what that's about in just a second.

Washing clothes.

That's gonna be our first point we talk about.

So, think about it, if it's summer time, you're gonna wanna enjoy summer, you're from school, some of us have camp, some of us have time with our families, we go visit our aunts and uncles, we go visit other family members, there's all kinds of stuff that we get a chance to do, sometimes we play outside with our friends.

And we wanna do that on sunny days, not rainy days, it's exciting because the sun is out and it's warm and we have our shorts on and our sneakers, and we're running through sprinklers sometimes, maybe we get to go to the pool, it's really exciting.

So I love that time.

Some of us, because New Jersey has such a great coastline, we are able to go to beach.

Remember when we were looking at this map before, look at all the coastline that New Jersey has.

So all the way from Hudson County, from the yellow section, the green section, the purple section, and down to Cape May, then all the way around, if you end up not being near a beach, you're close to a river on the other side, with the Delaware River, and it goes all the way up to the north.

So, it's exciting because you go to the beach with your family, your friends, it's great, but there's also great recreational areas, and fun and exciting activities to do on the other side, with the river and in different areas with the mountains.

So much fun.

So in the summer, the last thing you wanna do is sit inside and be bored.

So I understand that, and then when it rains, what we tend to do is, all right so you can't go out, we have to stay home, if that's the case, that's the time to get all of our chores done, right?

I don't wanna do them on the sunny day, I would rather do them when I'm stuck home.

Unfortunately, many of our chores adds a lot of water to the system, and so if it's raining and we're getting a lot of rain flow, it's already building up, we're having the flooding happening and it's just too much water to keep clean, and some of that dirty water goes out into our natural waterways.

So we don't wanna add water to a system that's already trying to process as much as it can.

We need to capture this water or prevent it from happening.

So with washing our clothes being the first thing we're talking about.

We wanna remember that it's better to save your laundry for a sunny day, maybe you can do it in the morning before you go out and play with your friends or go for your day trip with your family.

Or maybe at the end of the night, but do it when the water isn't coming down, the rain, so to speak.

So, here's some facts that might help you understand why that's so helpful.

We have washer machines that most people have, in the laundromats, in your home, depending on where you do your laundry, those modern washing machines, use between 29 to 45 gallons of water to do one load of laundry.

So it sounds like a lot, but let's really thinking about that now.

This is a gallon size, everyone's seen we have our milk and different things like that, if filled with liquid, this ends up being really, a whole bunch of water.

So imagine 45 of these, that's how much it takes to clean one load of your clothes.

So, on my block, if you can think about it, on your block, think about how many homes that you have.

If you live in area where it's rural and you don't have a lot of neighbors, it might not be as many people at once, but in our town, here in Bayonne, we have many people.

Our block alone, has over 27 homes, and each home has either two families or four families living inside.

So, that's a lot of people, some of them have kids, and it's a lot of laundry.

They're not just doing one load of laundry, if it rains and everybody decides it's gonna be laundry day, let's get it over with so we can have fun on the sunny days, then we're talking about 45 gallons of water that's being used just for one load.

If each family does two loads of laundry, and there's 27 houses, and some of those houses have two to four families each, the numbers get big really quickly.

So we're looking at gallons and gallons and gallons of water, just for the homes on my street that we're putting out there.

Can you imagine what it would be like if the entire city, with approximately 27 homes, with multiple families, all decided to do their laundry.

Everyone's running to the laundromat, because it's an easy to get it done.

That's always the best situation for our overtaxed CSO, and it adds so much water, that it really does add to the pollution.

So we have make sure that we can wait until the rain stops, give the dirty water that is already in the sewer a chance to go up, get cleaned, and come back, go out and do what it has to do, back into the natural waterways as clean water, not added to as dirty water.

Then we could do all of our laundry.

So, that's a really good thing to consider and it really helps keep the overflow of water in mind.

So let's get your paper out, let's write our second tip that we're gonna talk about.

So this is gonna be the next one on our list, and it's gonna be keep the patch of grass near the curb.

You're probably thinking, what is she talking about?

Don't worry, I'll explain.

So number two is keep the patch of grass near the curb.

Okay.

Take a second to write that down, that's gonna be part two of our list.

So, what ends up happening in a lot of cases, some cities, you know when you're driving your car down the street and you pull over to park right next to the curb, some cities have a patch of grass right next to it.

Some blocks do, some blocks don't.

Sometimes it's a city wide thing, where everyone has that patch of grass, and in some cases, owners who have their house right in front, they've decided to put cement over it so that it's easier to maintain.

There's nothing wrong with that, it's a personal choice, but that patch of grass has a very important role.

So we're gonna talk about that.

Let me show you a picture first.

Look at the bottom where there's a little bit of green, can you see that?

Let me get up there, yeah, there you go.

There is a curb there and then there's the grass and then the sidewalk and then the grass that goes in front of people's homes.

So this is important to look at because that patch of grass is really important.

When the rain comes down from a heavy rainstorm, it needs a place to go, patches of grass absorb that water, and it holds onto it a little bit longer.

Then it also feeds the grass, because the grass loves the water, the grass will grow so well.

Some people plant some different trees there and you'll see little trees by where you park.

Trees love that as well.

Anything that's in that area, the flowers, whatever, they do well with the rain that falls, because it collects and holds onto it and helps give them what they need over those hot summer days.

The problem with those little patches is that sometimes, it's hard to maintain.

So, many people are working and very busy these days, and so when you have lots of grass that's growing and growing and growing, or sometimes you have too much, like trees to maintain, or flowers that have to be planted, we don't always have time for that, and because it's in the front of the house, it's something that people are stepping on when they're getting out of cars, sometimes are letting their dogs go there and they're not picking up very well.

So the responsibility of keeping it clean, keeping it healthy, and maintained falls on the owner.

So whoever owns that house and has the patch of grass, sometimes they just don't wanna deal with it, and it's understandable.

So if you take a look, I'm gonna show that same picture again.

But look at the picture up at the top, do you see how messy it is?

That's another section with the type of grass and everything, you can look, you can see the street, you can see the curb, you can also see all the, there's some garbage in it, and it's very overgrown.

There's a pole there, that's actually a street sign, and then you see some homes around it, it's just not an area that somebody is keeping up well, and it's difficult because maybe they're busy, and maybe it just gets so dirty, that you don't really want to.

So it starts looking like it's out of control.

And that's not always easy to deal with because you have a lot of things to consider, where garbage might stuck there, you don't wanna have to pick up someone else's dog stuff, you know, it's not always nice.

So, people have started cementing over it.

The problem though with that is that's one less place that the water has to go.

Some people have used bricks and used patio stones, which is an excellent idea because the water can still go down in between these bricks and these things.

But, it's something that's really important.

So one of the things you can do to help people to be able to maintain that space is be careful with your garbage.

If you're walking your pet, make sure you're cleaning up after your pet and picking everything up.

If they need to use that patch of grass, make sure you're cleaning it up and not leaving anything behind.

If you're walking around the city and you happen to see somebody's garbage rolled out into there, maybe a candy wrapper, it's easy enough to pick it up and throw it away.

So see if you can do your part to help keep whatever existing patches of grass we have clean and healthy, so that it's easier for people to maintain them.

This is going to be a huge part of helping keep the flooding and flood reduction down.

Okay, our next one is going to be cut your shower a little shorter, so write that down.

Number three.

Cut your shower shorter.

Okay.

So it's lovely to have a nice hot, luxurious, shower, sometimes you like a cold one when it's summer time and we just wanna cool off a little bit.

At the end of the day, nothing is more refreshing than getting in that shower and enjoying just having the water run over.

The shower itself is great, it's actually a more efficient way of cleaning and everything without using as much water.

But some of us get excited about being in there and we just stay in for a long time.

I know, I love a nice, long, hot shower.

Sometimes you just need it, but a lot of times you're adding to the CSO issue.

So sometimes when it's raining, when you're using your shower, showers themselves tend to use up a significant amount of water, it's falling over you the whole time, it doesn't stop when you stop to put the shampoo in, or stop to use the soap, so what ends up happening is we're having a lot of water just go right down the drain.

The shower itself, uses approximately, an eight minute shower I would say, it's approximately 17 gallons.

So remember, this is the gallon size.

When you're standing in the shower for about eight minutes, you're using 17 of these up, that's just coming over you.

So what are some things we can do to save some water while we're in the shower?

Well, we could turn off the water in between, when we're soaping up and we're doing our hair, and we're getting everything ready, maybe we can wet our hair first, and then we can go it and then turn the water back on.

We can turn it off and on in between, so that it's not just running in between hair applications and using the soap.

But, you can also try to take a shorter shower.

Maybe just move a little faster when you're getting all your stuff done.

And one of the things that I think is really important is that if we can get an eight minute shower, maybe down to six minutes or five minutes, it's a really cool challenge.

You can challenge yourself, get in and out, and see how much water you can save.

So, if you think about it, it's 17 gallons used, we're going to do a special challenge which I'm going to put on you guys.

See if you talk about it with your families, and see if you guys can do the fastest shower challenge.

And what that does is you guys will all be able to take your showers, when you're family does, and time each other.

See who got out of the shower the fastest that day.

Also, if you know that it's going to be raining the next day, and maybe you wanna take your shower the night before so that you're not adding to the rain in the morning, and the extra water that's happening.

So these are some cool things you can do and some little challenge you can do with your family, and see who's the fastest, is it gonna be mom or dad?

Is it gonna be grandma?

Is it gonna be, you know, any of the other adults in your life?

Is it gonna be your neighbors?

Is it gonna be your siblings?

Whoever it is in your house, you don't have to just do it in your house either, you can challenge other friends and family members that live in different areas.

So if you don't have any brothers or sisters like me, I'm an only child, I wouldn't have many people to do it with, just my immediate family, but I had a lot of friends growing up and I have a lot of cousins.

So this is a challenge I would with them.

I would call them on the phone and say, Okay, so, did you know that an average shower is eight minutes?

In an eight minute shower, you use 17 gallons, 17 gallons of water, it's insane.

So what we're gonna do to save water and do our part to promote a healthy ecosystem, we're gonna try not to shower in the middle of a rainstorm, we'll wait till the rain passes and do it an hour or two later, that'll be really helpful on the CSO.

The other thing that it helps with too, is when we do it, you and I are gonna do a challenge, we're gonna do a fastest shower challenge, and I wanna see, have your parents time you, I'm gonna have my parents time me, let's see who could get in and out of the shower the fastest, and save the most amount of water.

It's a lot of fun to try to do, and it really helps the environment and also the CSO.

So the next thing we're gonna talk about, this is going to be number four on our list, this is called permeable pavement.

Now some of you may not have heard about this, this was something I learned about when I started learning about clean water and ecology, and this is so cool.

So let's write down, number four, permeable pavement.

If you're not sure how to spell it, I'm gonna show it to you in just a sec.

Permeable pavement, P-A-V-E-M-E-N-T.

Let's take a look.

Permeable pavement.

Now permeable pavement is really important.

This is kind of a new thing that I think they're experimenting with to try to help concrete surfaces absorb water.

So in a city like ours, where we have a lot of concrete, we have a lot of sidewalks, we have a lot of roads, and a lot of streets.

So these areas, when the water comes down from the sky and it starts to rain, it just makes these areas slick, the water has nowhere to go.

So again, when it comes down really fast, and the sewers are already full of water that are going back up to get cleaned, it has nowhere to go.

So you may have an inch or two of water on the street, you may get some flooding.

Or maybe it just gets kind of wet and it gets a little slippery, that's not so bad, but the parking lot areas are usually areas that you see some flooding, if there's not a drainage system.

There may be, your cement gets wet, but it doesn't actually absorb the water and give the water a place to go.

So, permeable pavement, well actually I'll show you this, it really helps in understanding it.

It has these little ridges and grooves.

So take a look, it has ridges and grooves inside, and where the car is parked, it's right on top of the permeable pavement.

You see those little blue dots coming from the cloud, that's gonna be some rain.

When that rain goes down, it's going to go where those arrows are going, it's gonna settle and run off into the little rivets and the little divots and those cavity areas.

As it goes into that, there's usually stone underneath it or maybe the water is absorbed by the plants and the trees next to it, you guys see those green areas.

Also, that stone reservoir helps the water go into the water ways underground, which is quite nice.

It gives them a place to hold, it helps it, sometimes it evaporates, and it goes back up into the air when it gets warmer and the sun comes back out.

Or it'll trek down, it'll go through the stones, and it'll drain out a different way.

So permeable pavement is really helpful.

And in some cases, what I like about this, is that you can use it on large areas where you need for parking.

So, in some cases, you would use it for the asphalt or the concrete, any large concrete areas that aren't at a low point.

If there's already flooding that happen there because it's at a lower point and just everything runs off at a bottom of a hill, permeable pavement isn't going to be helpful, because when water comes down off a hill, it brings sediment with it.

All that sediment, that's dirt and minerals and rocks and things like that, and those will block up all of those permeable spots.

So we wanna make sure that permeable pavement is used on flat surfaces, areas that are atypical of flooding.

This is gonna help the other areas that do flood, because it's going to catch the rain, it's gonna hold onto it, or help it drain a different way, to some of our waterways, help support some of the green, vegetation that we have, that needs the water, and it does it in a way where it holds onto that water.

In the warm months, it's extra helpful, but it's also really helpful in the winter months too because, when you have permeable pavement and you have the snow that kinda comes down, or even some cold rain, instead of it hitting the ground and turning to ice, it goes into those little divots and those little pockets within the pavement and it's not as slippery, which is really helpful, sometimes it's not slippery at all.

So we have an option with that, it helps us, not only in the warm months, but it also helps us in the winter months where it gets nice and cold.

Okay, so our next item is a good one.

You guys are gonna love this.

So, item number five, I call save the dishes for tomorrow.

How many of you guys do dishes?

We all have our chores and how we help out around the house, so if you're one of the kids that helps out with dishes, maybe, saving the dishes for a non rainy time would be helpful.

What we do when we wash dishes, it ends up making a lot of water that comes down.

We waste a lot just by washing dishes in the sink.

Now, it's not to say that you're not gonna be doing dishes, it's also not to say that dishes shouldn't be done, they need to be done.

We absolutely have to do that, but we have to careful how much water we're wasting.

So before we go on, let's write that down.

The is gonna be number five, save the dishes for later.

Okay, take a second to write that down, that's gonna be item number five on our checklist.

So, when we are saving our dishes for later, like I said, they always have to be done, it's not that you're not doing your dishes, it's not that you're getting out of chores, what I'm saying is maybe when it's raining, instead of doing all the dishes at once, maybe we can wait until the rain stops.

Or do them in the morning, on a sunny day, before you go out and enjoy time, summer time outside.

So, think about different ways that you can start rescheduling how you do your chores, especially because many of them are water based.

And if we're doing while it's raining outside, we're gonna be adding to the flooding issues, we're going to be adding to the CSO problem, and we wanna make sure that we will help that in as many ways as we can.

So, saving the dishes for tomorrow.

What are some solutions we could do with dishes?

Well some people have dishwashers, unfortunately I don't, so my husband and I do them by hand, moreso my husband than me.

But some families have people, like in our family, I do the cooking, he does the washing and the dishes.

So maybe that's how it is in your family.

Maybe you help out with some, maybe you're doing the drying while you're helping someone else do the washing, it's different for every person.

If you happen to have a washer machine, a dish washing machine, that's really great, the dish washing machine is really helpful, because it doesn't waste a lot of water, it uses the least amount of to get all of the dishes clean at once, so it's really helpful.

The idea though, is that we have to be aware, even though we're using a device that's helping us save water, and it's a smart device, we also have to remember how much it's using so that we know when to turn it on and off.

With the dishes, it uses about five to six gallons, so remember, here's my trusty gallon example, it uses five to six of these to wash up all the dishes in a full load.

Now, that's really good, that's not a lot of water, but the idea, remember is if everyone has a dishwasher on your block, and like on my block, there's 27 homes, with at least two to four families in each one, if everybody waits for the rain to come, that's about six gallons just to do one load dishes, and everyone's doing it at once.

So multiply that by 27, then multiply that sometimes by two or four, depending on how many people are using their dishwasher at the same time.

That dumps a lot of gallons into a rainy system, that's already covered with dirty water that it's trying to clean and take care of.

So we don't want that overflowing into our natural waterways, like we've talked about.

So maybe you can run the dishwasher once the rain stops.

Give it a little time, give the CSO some time to process the water that it has, and then that'll be fine.

You could do it after the rain has stopped, you could do it the next day when it's sunny, check the weather and start thinking about how to clean your dishes at the best time, based on the weather.

This is something that'll be really helpful to the ecological health of our ecosystem and our waterways.

Okay, so we are now up to number six, and this is really exciting because this one's a little different, we're gonna talk about using a rain barrel.

So why don't we write that down.

Six, use a rain barrel.

Now some kids may have seen this already, and that's awesome.

Again, if you haven't, don't feel bad, not everyone uses a rain barrel, so today is your special day to learn about it.

Use a rain barrel, number six.

Okay, everyone have that down?

We're gonna get started.

A rain barrel's a pretty cool thing.

So I'm gonna start with a picture because a picture is worth a 1000 words, and it's always easier than talking about it.

So take a look at this rain barrel, it's legitimately a barrel, not all of them are, some of them are big plastic containers, some of them may look different, but basically it's some sort of big container.

Now take a look up at the top, you see that white thing going down into it?

That's the drain pipe, everybody's seen that on the side of their home or their building.

So you have gutters at the top of your roof, and what that does is it collects all kinds of rain.

Every time the rain falls on your roof, it comes down and it goes into the gutter.

From there, it goes all the way down and it either connects to the sewer system, like it does for my house, or, in some cases, it just opens up and kinda lets it go out to the grass.

So, that water that runs off your house can be used for other things.

What this does, is if you have it in a rain barrel, some people have them elevated and propped up, some people have two of them that connect and when one fills up, it stills over to the next one.

It's pretty cool stuff, but this is primarily used to in gardens.

So people will use it collect the rain, so that it doesn't flood in their area, and then what they'll do is you see that little spot down at the bottom?

That little spigot?

What you'll do is you'll fill up either attach a hose to it or you could fill up a bucket, and then you go, or fill up your rain can and you can actually water your plants with it.

Now this saves you money, we have to pay for water, where everyone gets a water bill from their house or their apartment for the water that you use.

It's really important to remember that if you can save some water, or use the natural water that's falling from the sky, because you've collected, you're now saving money too.

You're also saving flooding.

So this is a really important move that if you happen to have a rain barrel to collect some of that, you can definitely work with it.

Now in some cases, some people can't collect it with the spout at the top, that's okay, in our house, it goes straight down into the sewer.

Some people cut that pipe, that drain pipe right there, and they move it out, and then they move it back for the summer time, when they're using their rain barrels in the spring and summer.

In our case, we just left an open rain barrel in the back, in our yard, and what it does is it collects a lot of rain water still.

So it's much more effective if you have the down spout, that white part going into the barrel, but if you don't have one, and you think that your house could use a rain barrel to save some money on water and to use the natural water that we get from the sky, it's a really great thing to set up.

You absolutely don't have to connect it right away to the spout.

There are some other things you wanna worry about, not worry about, but focus on, so if you do decide to do a rain barrel with your family, make sure that you are researching it a little bit, you wanna put a screen between the top and the actual barrel, so that you don't have mosquitoes settling.

Some people put vegetable oil on the top because mosquitoes like to get into the water and lay their eggs.

So that would actually prevent them because they don't like the oily texture.

So things like that, if you use a rain barrel, either put a screen over it or put vegetable oil on it.

So that it rises to the top and keeps off the mosquitoes.

The vegetable oil isn't gonna hurt your plants or what you're using your rain barrel water for.

Another thing to remember is that if you're a local business, I know a few local businesses that have rain barrels in the back area of their establishment.

So like a pizzeria may have a sitting area up front, they have their pizza ovens and everything, and out in the back of the kitchen, there's a door that goes to maybe a small area outside, where they're getting their garbage together, and trying to clean up and use it as like a storage space outside.

Some of them have rain barrels, and what they'll do is they'll use that nice, clean water, that just came from the rain and they'll use it to wash their floors, a wonderful idea and it saves the business a lot of money also.

So rain barrels are not just gardening tools, they are really effective for just collecting free water and using it whenever you need it.

It's great way to save some money and to be ecologically minded for your ecosystem, because you're helping collect the water and give it a place to sit, instead of having it go right down to the sewer and add to the flooding situation.

Okay, so we are now up to item number seven on our checklist, and we're getting to end of it, so we wanna make sure that we get these details down right.

So everyone take a second to write this down, we're up to number seven, every garden counts.

So number seven.

Every garden counts.

And I can't stress how important this is.

Gardens are wonderful for so many reasons.

We can grow our own food with gardens, we can grow our own fruits and things that are sustainable for us that we can use, it saves us money, instead of having to go and buy them from the supermarket.

So it's also great to be able to have these types of gardens because they increase our biodiversity.

Remember we talked about that earlier, the more that we have in our ecosystem, the more diversity, always, the stronger our community, and our ecosystem will be.

So, in this case we're adding fruits, we're adding vegetables, maybe we're planting trees, whatever we can do to plant and garden, even if it's little simple herbs, there are all very important.

They also attract something called pollinators which are like bees and insects that help transfer the pollen from plant to plant, which makes a very healthy garden and a very healthy ecosystem.

They also, attract birds and all kinds of other little critters that you end up seeing in your garden, because they eat them, it's like the food chain.

You're gonna see more squirrels, you're gonna see different types of animals that are coming out, and you'll notice them either in your garden, sometimes they like to eat your stuff, so you may have to put some netting over it to keep it safe, if you have a big garden project.

But you will definitely learn about some of the different animals that you see that start coming out and adding to our ecosystem and our biodiversity, because you've planted a garden.

Now, in our town, I've described, Bayonne, you know that we're mostly an urban city and we have a lot of concrete, not everyone has a back yard, not everyone has a big backyard, so some of us who do, just have a tiny little patch of grass at the back or a postage stamp sized back yard, it's just enough for us.

But, in some cases, it's still an appropriate amount where you can still put a garden together.

Many people around town here, grow their own fruits and vegetables, and I see in the summer time, they love to plant their New Jersey Tomatoes, and watch them sprout and be able to harvest them from their back yard.

And have them in your salad and your foods.

It's very exciting.

So you can also do herb gardens.

So if you are in a place where you have farms all around you and lots of open space, plant stuff, have fun with it.

If you're in a place where there's a lot of woods around you and you have a lot of space, go for it, plant it, get your family involved, make a garden happen.

But if you're in maybe a place where you don't have a back yard, or maybe you're in an apartment building, where this is no space for that, you can still do some really nice little things to add it and like I said, every garden counts.

Whether it be this big or a huge amount of space, it doesn't matter, every garden counts.

So, in our yard, we have a little patio area, so those patio bricks allow the rain to go down, like it's a type of permeable pavement, so like we talked about before, the rain gets collected there.

But, instead of getting on our knees and hands and tending the dirt and the garden on our hands and knees on the ground, we have elevated things, so we have some pots, we have some little pots and things that hang off of the fence, so it's a little easier for us to set up and get to when we have to pull the weeds and make sure they're getting water, and plant the seeds and tend to our garden.

So, these raised pots are really important, it could be a raised flower bed, it could just be a huge pot, it could be small herb gardens, these are all important things that will make your garden special, and it will also collect the rain.

Any little container there is gonna take up some extra rain and that's how much less that goes in.

Some people that don't have a yard at all, I know a lot of people have window boxes, there's a little thing that holds onto your window sill that hangs off the outside of your window, and it's a box, and you could put different types of flowers in it, some people grow herbs and then when they want something, they open up the window, pick what they need and close the window.

It depends on what's best for you, what type of windows, and of course, you have to talk with the adults in your family, and make sure that it's okay with them.

But, those are also some options, if you're someone that doesn't have a back yard, and you wanna help with the CSO, and you love to plant, and would like to learn about that, that's a really great opportunity for you.

So remember every garden counts.

Okay, so we are now up to number eight on our list, and this ones going to be trade your bath for a shower.

So, let's take a second and write that one down.

Number eight.

Trade your bath for a shower.

Trade your bath for a shower is such an important thing.

So recently, we talked about showers.

Now showers are probably the better way of saving water over a bath, because they use less gallons of water, they only use about 17.

So we're even trying to shave some of that time down with our shorter shower challenge.

But, in the meantime, some people absolutely love their baths, so if you're one of those bath people, think about it.

This is our one gallon, we use 36 gallons for an average bath.

So if you filled up with 36 of these, and then put a person in the bath, that's gonna be a lot of extra water, especially if it's a rainy day and we have the overtaxed CSO, it's just a lot of water in general to use.

So if you are a bath taker, you have some options.

Maybe you can consider taking a shower, which would only use up 17 gallons, even if you took an average eight minute shower.

You might not be ready for our quick shower challenge, if you're kind of weaning yourself off of a bath, that's okay.

But if it's a change in your lifestyle that helps alleviate some of the extra water that we use and save some of it, that's a really positive thing for our ecosystem and our environment.

Now, we also have some other stuff to consider too.

Maybe you just absolutely wanna have a bath, or you're someone who like to sit when you're in the shower as opposed to have to stand up.

Everybody's different so we all have our needs for what we need.

The best path for that then is maybe you wanna work with less water, instead of filling the whole tub up, and totally going under, it feels nice if maybe you do half the amount of water, try to conserve in ways that's best for you, so that you could meet the needs of your CSO and water conversation opportunities.

So we are at number nine on our list, and we are gonna be talking about hedges, trees, and tall vegetation, and how important they are and things you can do with them to help support our saving water and water conservation.

So let's write that down, that's number nine, hedges, trees, and tall vegetation.

Take a look in case you need help with spelling.

Vegetation, almost sounds like vegetables.

Well, the word vegetation, if you're not familiar with it, has to do with big, green, anything lush, trees, things like that.

So it's all types of plants, anything that's growing that's big plants and everything, that's important.

So if we have tall vegetation, that means it's not little pieces of grass at the bottom, it might be tall, tall things.

An example of tall vegetation, if you go to the beach, and you see some of those big, spiky looking, grass things together, there's different species of it, and there's tall grass that grows.

Depending on where you live, you may have other types of tall grasses and vegetation and bushes and things like that.

With this particular segment, we're gonna discuss a little bit about how that helps.

So when you live in a city that has a lot of trees or a town that has a lot of tall vegetation, and a lot of green stuff, it's very helpful, when the rain comes.

So in Bayonne, we've been considered Tree City for quite a long time, we've been very committed to making sure that we have trees growing.

If one needs to be removed, because it's maybe causing problems with the root system and a house, two trees are planted.

So it's a really important thing to us, because we know how that helps support our ecosystem.

So having the trees helps for a lot of reasons, but when you have these types of tall vegetation, they grow really tall and they have lots and lots of leaves everywhere.

So when the rain comes, the water settles on all these different leaves, you get lots of droplets.

Have you ever been out after a rainstorm, and you're walking down the street and it's not raining, it's dry out, but it rain a little while ago, and all of sudden some wind comes, and you're under a tree and you feel like it's starts raining again because you get wet.

That's what happens with trees and tall vegetation.

They collect a lot of rain water, and they hold it on their leaves.

Now, they absorb as much as they need to, but it also helps that rain water to be reabsorbed into the atmosphere again.

So, this is really important stuff, if you have more trees in your area, it's going to prevent flooding in your area.

So think about where you live, many places with very few trees, have more of a flooding and CSO issue, because the water has nowhere to go, as we've been learning about a lot today, right.

Now when you think about people who live out in the woods, or maybe near a farm, or places where they have tall vegetation and trees, a lot of that gets absorbed and it's not even something you think about right away.

But water conservation is important.

So what you can do with your family is if you're planting something, make choices that are helpful to support your area, based on what type of plants you can put in the ground and based on your water conservation and ecology.

So that's always a great idea, if you're planting a tree, try to get one that's going to grow kind of tall, if you can, that has a lot of leaves to it, and that's going to hold all kinds of water and allow it to evaporate.

And in some cases, if you're gonna put some plants in, you might wanna consider putting a taller plant in if you can, because it's also going to help with the collection of water, and give it a place to go.

And it's also really important to remember, that if you do any gardening, anything at all, if you have a deck off the back of your house, some people do, and you think, oh, I don't really have room for gardening, you could hang those planters, you could put raised potted plants, you could do different types of window boxes that hang off of the railings over the side of your deck.

There's a lot of options that you have and every patch of dirt that you put, even if it's in a box and it's elevated, it catches the rain and it helps those plants.

It also keeps the rain and the flooding out of our CSO.

So it's really important.

I wanna thank you all so much today.

I am so proud of all of your attention, and your interest in ecology, we have so much beauty in New Jersey, so much natural beauty, in every single region.

And there's so much nature.

Some of us live in urban cities like I do and when you look around and you see what's here, we have so much that's part of nature, that you don't realize because you're running to work, you're running to school, you're in the car, and some people only think that an ecosystem or nature has to do with lots of woods and lots of grass and that's not necessarily the case.

Every single part of our state has gorgeous areas that really need to be discovered and developed and maintained.

So what we learned about today is a fantastic list that you've created, that you don't have to worry about until you have some rainy day stuff going on.

You can see the weather coming up this week, all right, maybe Wednesday or Thursday might be raining, that's fine.

You can go to your checklist and think about, all right, well maybe I can schedule my chores for a different day, maybe I can make a better choice about how much water I'm using.

Think about that and see what you can work on.

You are an incredibly powerful source in this, and it starts with each individual.

But students, there are so many students in our state, bring that information home to your siblings, to your parents, talk about it, share the knowledge that you've learned and come up with a family plan, see if you can make some adjustments to some of the routines that you've doing and see if you can come up with some healthy ways to save our waterways.

And if you happen to be on one of those CSO communities, like I am, you can work on things that will directly impact how the flooding situation and how our CSO is working.

These are really important tools that you can work with through the rest of your life no matter where you live, and it just helps you take care of your environment, and boost your biodiversity, in your ecosystem, where we live.

So I wish you all the best, I hope everybody has a wonderful summer and enjoys the rest of the school year.

♪ From our house to yours ♪ ♪ From Newark to the shore ♪ ♪ One big New Jersey fam and we're learning live ♪ ♪ Learning live, learning live ♪ (upbeat music)