Mentorship
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| Tomatoes growing in the green house |
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| Part of the Urban Roots farm |
1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.
Me mentors name is Jeff Bryant. His phone number is 775-636-5105, and his organization in Urban Roots.
2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice?
Urban Roots is a company that teaches kids and young adults about farming. This includes teaching the them different ways of conserving water while growing crops. A lot of water is wasted while growing different crops, so this organisation helps try and teach people alternatives that prevent that. My mentor was qualified as an expert in my topic choice because he helped found the company and works hard to teach the new generation about better farming methods, which includes water conservation.
3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.
- Why do farmers think that "flooding" is the best way to water a field?
- What are some ways that the government can help fix our water issues?
- How much water from Walker lake has been taken by farmers in the last ten years?
4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?
From this experience I learned how much water can be wasted from just one farmer, and how unnecessary it is. Flooding is when farmers flood their fields with water every other month. This method doesn't work very well as most of the water isn't absorbed by the plants, but instead evaporated. The plants cant absorb as much water that's flooded into the fields, so a lot of it goes to waste. There are so many alternatives to flooding as well, such as drip, which is a water line that drips water onto the plants. This way the plants get all of the water and none of it is wasted. There are also other plants that you can plant in the fields that help greatly with the plants growth. From this I learned that there is no good reason on why we are wasting as much water as we are.
5. What is your senior project topic going to be? How did mentorship help you make this decision? Please explain.
My senior topic is going to be water conservation. I first chose this topic because of Walker Lake, and I still want that to be apart of my my topic, but from this mentorship I learned that water conservation is a bigger issue than I had previously thought. So much water is being wasted, and in this drought, wildlife and ecosystems are suffering. This may not be affecting us, but if we keep the same habits that we have now, it could have some major consequences in the future. This mentorship also showed me how I could help conserve water, and how I can teach others as well.
