OEC
OEC
By Tyra
It was a crisp fall day in the year 2017 at the Outdoor Education Center [OEC]. The scent of pine trees was being carried by the wind. Armies of Mosquitos were buzzing around. Frogs were hip-hopping all over the place and moose were resting and drinking water in the mossy bogs of the OEC. It was like the beautiful, crunchy leaves were dancing in the sky. It was all so peaceful. Then, the next week there was a problem.
Suddenly hunters, fisherman, schools and even just random people decided that they would use the OEC bogs as their garbage drop off! Then, one day, nice Ranger Michelle came to me and my best friend Zoey and sniffled, “The OEC is not going to be available anymore because of the trash!” We were so sad. So Zoey and I got ready to pick up some trash. We got strong, black trash bags and clear, plastic gloves. We started the clean-up clean right away. “Let’s get to it!” shouted Zoey.
On our way to the bogs we saw that many animals had passed away, others had moved away altogether because of the pollution. The land was littered with junk like old cars, pop cans, plastic grocery bags, candy wrappers and more. “This place looks exactly like the dump!” I exclaimed.
“Look at how the pollution oozed through the moss,” Zoey sniffled, “How did this happen?” Zoey mumbled.
“The reason the animals are dying is because when the animals drank the water from the bog they were actually drinking pollution that seeped through the moss. They were also dying because they would get tangled in plastic bags.” I explained to Zoey. “They were trying to eat the candy wrappers then they would choke.” Zoey started to silently cry.
“Why would anybody do this? It was such a beautiful place?!” Zoey whimpered “It used to look so pretty and now it looks so … so … gross!” After we were done for the day, we walked to the dump with the trash that we had picked up.
We worked hard for two long months and finally we got all the trash picked up. “Good job,” Zoey exclaimed, “We did a good thing.” A few weeks later we saw that lots of the animals came back. The birds built their nests and the wolves, moose, bears and other animals had their young there and the OEC was opened back up and nobody littered at the Outdoor Education Center ever again.