Final Reflection

Looking back on the entirety of the CAS project, we are very satisfied with the impact our group has been able to make on Aurora, as well as the skills and observations we were able to make along the way.

In terms of our impact, we have picked up over 30 pounds of garbage and recycling across 10 parks, cleaning up effectively most of the parks in the Aurora region. Throughout our cleanup sessions, we have also been fortunate enough to meet people who complimented our work and talked with us about trash cleaning. This has helped show us that our efforts, despite being small in theory, have had a positive impact on both other individuals as well as the community at large. Looking at our photos before and after our cleanups, we also can see a clear difference in the cleanliness of the parks we visited. Thus, it is clear we made a tangible, significant impact in our community. What will be interesting to observe will be how long it takes for those parks to be littered again; we hope our actions will inspire in some way people to be more mindful of their environment.

Looking at the skills and experience we gained along the way, we believe this CAS project has been beneficial in both improving our environmental awareness and knowledge, as well as our collaborative, planning, and writing skills. From designing and updating the website, to writing the blog posts, and adding gallery images to display our work, we all had parts to play in environmentally advocating for less littering on an online medium. We had to do research and synthesize the information we learned into our blog posts, studying topics such as plastic recycling, environmental psychology, and stewardship's effects on society. We have also had to use critical thinking to analyse our cleanup sessions from both an ethical, and global perspective lens, connecting the issues we encountered to environmentalism.

We also played large roles in planning, researching and finding the locations for our cleanups, as well as coordinating our team to meet for the cleanups (i.e deciding the day and time). Furthermore, our group was able to coordinate during the cleanup, adapting to each situation and work efficiently to pick up trash and recycling. Sometimes, when we had an even number of people, we would split up in pairs to cover more ground.

Overall, we believe this CAS project to be both beneficial in building our character, as well as helping the community by giving back to the town which offered so much to us: from parks, trails, and natural green spaces, the town played an integral part in maintaining nature for citizens to enjoy. After having done so many cleanups, we have a newfound appreciation for the efforts that town workers take to ensure parks are clean, day in and day out. We are thankful to all the volunteers who also worked on the cleanups, as well as our

CAS supervisor, for helping coordinate and oversee our groups' activities.