The Effectiveness of an Educational Campaign of Neighborhood with in the Wingra Watershed

 

Cody Marenes and Kellie Lutz

Natural Science Project (2005-2006)

 

(click title above to link to full text)

INTRODUCTION

• The Love Your Lakes Campaign is an important part of maintaining the health of the Wingra Watershed. This campaign involves the surrounding neighborhoods and is concerned with keeping the lake and nearby water sources free of the harmful elements that the leaves bring.
• When leaves are on the street, they can be a source of pollutants when the water drains through the leaves and carries the phosphorus out of the leaves and into the lakes through the storm sewer system.

(click image)

 

METHODS

• We sampled a collection of 95 houses chosen at random in two different neighborhoods; one neighborhood received brochures about proper leaf collection and the other one did not.
• We assessed the extent to which each household followed proper leaf collection procedures (Table 1).

 

RESULTS

 

CONCLUSION

• The Campaign is working about 75% of the time, in the neighborhood that got brochures (Graph 2).
• For the neighborhoods that did not receive brochures, less than 25% piled their leaves correctly on the terrace (note that all houses did not have curb and gutters).
• The results do show that the campaign is having a positive effect in the neighborhoods that received information about it.
• For the most part houses try to place leaves correctly, but they can’t be responsible for the method in which the city of Madison picks-up their leaves.

 

RECOMMENDATIONS

(click above image)

 • Maybe next year the campaign will branch out to reach more neighborhoods, so that the residents will follow the city ordinance.

 
• If the community wants the conditions of all of the lakes to improve, they should start small by raking leaves and placing them correctly on the terrace to keep them out of the Lake Wingra Watershed.


• Use leaves to benefit your yard (in terms of mulch, composting, and weed control)

 

 

 

Table 1.

 

0

Not raked

S

In street

ST

 Both (street and terrace)

T

On terrace (land between sidewalk and curb)

N/A

No leaves
Table 1.
Shows the general method in which we judged how and where the houses were raking their leaves. First we wanted to use a numbering system but there was discrepancy between what the number four meant and the number five meant. For someone else to repeat our way of observing, they would need a base analysis for comparison of particular houses on the street.

 

 
Graph 2.
Comparing the streets of different neighborhoods and graphing the results. The number of houses with leaves on the street and the number of houses that had leaves correctly on the terrace are shown in the above graph. Notice that there are many more houses that piled their leaves on the terrace because of the Love Your Lakes Campaign.

 

 

 

 

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