Author: nalbaghdadi1

Beginning my Creek Journey

by nalbaghdadi1

Recently, I began my work with the Atlanta Creek League by collaborating with Hannah Palmer, one of the minds behind the initiative, to begin building a local creek team. The Atlanta Creek League aims to engage communities in the Atlanta area with their local creeks in a fun and competitive way. By building creek teams and river divisions, communities across Georgia can find interactive and rewarding ways to be more aware of the natural world around them as well as improve the conditions of these critical water bodies. 

Many people live around creeks or have one just in their backyard, but may not know much about it. In fact, some creeks are not even named as a result of the lack of awareness about the local bodies of water around us. Prior to beginning my work with the Atlanta Creek League, I knew about the parks around me and the bodies of water (particularly lakes and rivers) that surrounded my house but I didn’t know much about the organizations that maintain them, the names of the creeks and rivers in my general watershed, nor the counties boundaries they cross over. As a matter of fact, I didn’t know much about creeks at all. Talking with Hannah and looking into the incredible work she and others involved with the Atlanta Creek League have done for our local watersheds made me all the more excited to learn about my own creek and how I can play a role in preserving it. Learning the importance of preserving watersheds beyond the borders of counties, cities, and legal jurisdictions dictated by maps really opened my eyes to how those boundaries can affect the livelihood of the creeks around us. I learned what my watershed is, how far it extends, the organizations that may be involved with its preservation, and how to start building a team for the creek. Here is a picture of the Little Mulberry Watershed that’s in my area, in case you haven’t seen it or heard about it before!


This watershed, like many others, connects so many different people from different cities, counties, and neighborhoods. I’m excited to start engaging the community with my local creek and have people meet each other and connect that would have otherwise never considered themselves a community with a shared regional feature or identity. I’m eager to begin with the projects I have planned out for my creek to raise awareness about and enact the preservation of Little Mulberry creeks and rivers. Beyond that, I’m happy that this initiative will also give communities around me an opportunity to connect with each other and collaborate on the bodies of water that sustain us and our environment. 

I can’t wait to update you guys again, hopefully with more faces in the pictures and another step towards creating a team for my creek!

Introduction: Noor Al-Baghdadi

by nalbaghdadi1

My name is Noor Al-Baghdadi and I am a second-year (also sort of 3rd year) political science student at GSU’s Honors College. I am also involved with the 4+1 program which is a program that allows me to work on both my Bachelor’s and my Master’s degree at the same time. I chose to participate in this Urban Ecology service-learning course because it is a field I was not really informed about. Of course, I knew the politics and realities of things like climate change, the environment, nature, and all things of the sort, but I never had to look much beyond what my major required me to. The topic of preservation and conservation in relation to nature is something I was always interested in but only really talked about it in a broad, global, and political context. I’ve learned so much more than I initially thought I would since I started the course. In our seminar-style classtimes, we discussed how the idea of “nature” could perhaps be a concept that we have assumed is separate from human society. It can bicultural, too- different people understand nature, its importance, its role, and its relation to us in completely different ways. We discussed how human beings could be understood as ecosystem engineers, much like ants, and that if we perceive ourselves that way, we may better understand our role as natural. All of these concepts were things I didn’t even realize were debated and so vital in our everyday interactions with nature and the politics of the environment.

 

For our service-learning portion of the class, I chose to partner with the Amphibian Foundation which prioritizes engaging communities with the amphibian extinction crisis in order to implement and encourage solutions to the issue. I found their work to not only be interesting, but necessary. Many people don’t realize the urgency of the amphibian crisis and the Amphibian Foundation offers a space where people can learn about it and actively participate in the solutions to it. In my mind, allowing individuals and communities to directly participate in these matters is an ideal way of encouraging individuals to feel important in environmental conservation and promotes efforts that require communities to connect with each other. This is a beautiful way of combating environmental issues while also promoting community values. Every individual’s contribution to the environment matters and the Amphibian Foundation embodies that truth. For that reason, I chose to partner with them for my volunteer work. I hope to offer valuable perspectives to their mission and also gain experience and expand my knowledge during my time with them. While I’m particularly interested in researching with the organization, I’m not sure what position I will be given, but I plan on doing my best in any position I am assigned. I couldn’t be more excited!