On the second day, Mr. Yu was giving a talk about recycling for the 7^th graders. It was also raining heavily, so we did not do any litter cleaning. However, I learned about how water sampling works. The “unclean” sample will turn yellow. Some samples did not turn yellow but fluorescence as they were put under UV light. It was fascinating to see the correlation between the distance of the spillage and the number of fluorescence samples. This method was one step in tracking the spillage sites that actively harm our water source. Next, Mr. Yu brought Sydney and me to more trash trap sites, and we saw a $175,000 trash trap owned by the city of Atlanta.

He said that one day, we might clean up that trap. Mr. Yu also showed us a site where they still use the combined sewage/water system. He said it was crucial to keep this river safe for the safety of the people in the area, especially the students from the school right next to the trash trap. The most exciting aspect of my service with Chattahoochee River is the knowledge I retained from many people with different specialties in every session. They had scientists who worked on the water samplings and littering tracking. They also had people who work mainly on social media and fundraising. Volunteering with them helps me realize how much impact a person can make towards “cleaning” our environment.

After getting back to the office, we sometimes discussed the final project for the course. Mr. Yu let us freely decide on the topic that we want to do. He also provided us with data links that might contain the number needed for our presentation. We might take some time to review the data, come up with an overview, and briefly talk about recycling and littering. One of the aspects that leads us to this thought might be coming from the fact that we would visit different sites along the Chattahoochee River and collect litter. We calculated the amount of trash collected for each site into various categories. Therefore, we might be able to figure out a relationship between some of the factors.

Hi everyone, I am Mina Pham. My community partner is Chattahoochee River, a non-profit organization working to reduce the amount of litter from different regions of the Chattahoochee River. Mr. Jordan Yu, Watershed Protection Specialist, is the person that I will be working with. His work involves a variety of duties, including litter cleanup and analysis, water sampling, pollution tracking, speaking events, workshops, and social media.

On the first day, I was introduced to the office and the laboratory section, where we could look at water samples and analyze the number of bacteria and microplastics. After that, Jordan, Jullian, and I prepared the equipment and protective clothing, and then we headed out to the first site to check the trash trap and clean it up. They cleaned the trash trap since it was the first day of the week. We headed to the furthest north site, Chamblee and Doraville. This site experienced sewage spillage a couple of months ago; therefore, we must be cautious about not letting any liquid get on our skin and clothes.

One of the most exciting works that I got to experience during the first day was learning more about how the organization works and how they set up different trash traps around the metro Atlanta city. Everyone was amiable, and I discovered a lot about their previous studies in the past few years about how they track down the source of littering by collecting multiple samples at different sites. Working under the water and exposing yourself to an aquatic environment, you might come in contact with small animals like spiders, mice, and water snakes. It is something that you cannot avoid. One of my most challenging works was climbing different cliffs to access the trash traps. Fun fact: one of my boots fell out as I tried to climb up. One surprising thing was how much trash we collected for each site was different, even when they had the same flow. For example, the site in Doraville was filled with Styrofoam and plastic bottles, while the site in Buckhead was filled with mud and only had plastic bottles.