(bright upbeat music) (ethereal music) (soft upbeat music) >>Hi, I'm Rick and I'm here on Belle Isle along the James river in Richmond, Virginia.

>>And I'm Nora, and I'm here along the beautiful Potomac River in Washington DC.

>>And I'm Maya, and I'm right here in beautiful downtown, Baltimore.

Today, we're gonna be talking about nature in the city.

Welcome to backyard bay savers with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Today, we're gonna be exploring the cities in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and learning how people living the cities can do their part for clean air, clean water and healthy communities.

>>Along the way, we'll meet some backyard bay savers, students who learn how to protect their communities, and we'll investigate the following questions.

>>How are cities connected to river, streams and the Chesapeake Bay?

>>Where can we find wildlife and nature in a city?

>>What can you do in our cities to help the environment and help save the Chesapeake Bay?

Let's start right here in Richmond.

(birds chirping) It's easy to find nature in a city, if you just know where to look.

Belle Isle is at 50 acre public park located right in the heart of Richmond, Virginia.

Let's see what we can find here.

(birds chirping) There we go, bikers enjoying the trails that circle the Island.

Oh, and there are some anglers trying to catch fish that call the James River home.

Oh, look, they got one.

(birds chirping) Oh, and there's a family taking a nature hike.

Richmond, like many cities has lots of buildings and bustling traffic and homes, but there are a lot of great public parks that you can use to explore nature outside.

Many of these parks were formed over 100 years ago and whether they're big or they're small, they're a great place to go and enjoy the outdoors.

I really encourage you and your family to try and find the parks closest to your home.

Another place that you could also explore are zoos and aquariums.

Many cities like Richmond and Washington, DC and Baltimore all have great zoos that you can explore and meet animal ambassadors to learn more about critters that you might not be able to in other areas.

Oh, look, it's our old friend, the watershed explorer.

As you may remember, this is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation scientific vessel that travels throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed, looking for wildlife and investigating water quality.

Hey old friends.

Oh, what is this?

A city bay saver scavenger hunt.

Oh, I've heard of these.

We can use these to try and identify nature and think about ways that we can be safe throughout our cities in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

So what do we have here?

Oh, we have birds and fungi and compost and rain barrels.

I wonder if we can find all of these things in our cities.

I'm gonna have to recruit some of my friends.

Hey Nora, did you get one of these in Washington, DC?

>>Sure did Rick.

How about you Maya?

>>Got it.

>>All right, let's work together and try to find as much nature as we can in our cities.

While parks are a great place to find nature, you don't always have to go to a park to find nature in the city.

Look right here.

We're right next to a sidewalk and there's this little patch of grass with a ton of different wild flowers growing right here.

Let's take a look and see what we can find.

Oh, I see a little pill burg right here.

There's some little bees going around here.

So we have these dandy lions, what a perfect example.

So these dandy lions have different nectar that attract pollinators like bees and butterflies and they can pollinate other plants in the area.

Also, these guys are famous for their seeds.

(blowing air sound) When I blow, their seeds disperse so that more dandy lions can grow all throughout the city.

These are really hardy plants and they can make do with whatever they have.

Ultimately, nature will come back and start to grow wherever there's room.

Since we found some insects, I'm gonna go ahead and Mark that off the scavenger hunt.

Back to you, Rick.

>>Awesome, one down, thanks Nora.

While we're working on our scavenger hunt, I also want to explore with you all today how humans and cities have been connected through the watershed throughout history and into today.

Long before the cities like Richmond were formed native Americans lived along these waterways and traveled and hunted and fished.

They were often very in tune with fish migrations like the herring and the shad.

It really goes to show you that humans have had a long connection with our watershed.

European colonizers moved in and they also established themselves along waterways.

Throughout history, people have used the waterways like highways for ships, boats, and canoes.

And waterways also provide us fish as a food source and even help our farms survive.

Cities have continued to grow and grow and that has led to more environmental problems.

Problems like pollution making its way into our stream and eventually making its way to the Chesapeake Bay.

It really goes back to that saying, "everything flows downstream" and it goes to that Chesapeake Bay, so we need to make sure we protect nature here in our cities.

Let's get back to our scavenger hunt.

Maybe Maya in Baltimore can help us out.

Hey, Maya, what are you seeing up there?

>>Getting started here, Rick.

Let's see what we can find here in Baltimore.

Now, right now I'm standing here off of Lombard Street just a few blocks away from the National Aquarium.

Now you can see that I'm surrounded here by big buildings.

I also have some paved sidewalks, as well as the roads.

Now, when it rains here, that rain can fall off of the roofs of the buildings, across the sidewalks here, off of the roads into storm drains, where it will eventually lead right into the Harbor, which is right behind me.

Many spots in the cities have services such as these.

like concrete and asphalt.

Now they cannot absorb water, so we call these impervious surfaces.

Now what happens is when the rainwater hits these impervious surfaces, the rainwater will quickly run off of these surfaces and oftentimes into local storm drains.

(rain drop sound) (thunder rumbling) Now they often carry along with it, yucky hitchhikers like oil sediment, and fertilizer.

Now, when it makes it into the storm drains and into the local waterways, that we have lots of those yucky hitchhikers, that can cause a lot of harm to the plants and animals that call it home.

So we call this whole process polluted runoff, and polluted runoff is a challenge that many cities have to deal with.

(water flowing sound) Have you ever seen one of these storm drains I'm talking about?

Well there's one right here.

Now remember these storm drains will carry that polluted runoff to a nearby waterway.

Now you may be wondering, what are some things that we can do to stop polluted runoff?

Well, I may have one solution nearby.

Let's go check it out.

Here's actually one of the solutions to the pollution problem.

If you look right behind me, there's a lovely garden.

Now, luckily for us, scientists have discovered that slowing down that polluted runoff and letting our natural filters absorb and clean that water is a great way to combat and go against that polluted runoff.

Now let's do an experiment to test the different surfaces around the city.

Now for this experiment, you're gonna need a bottle of water.

You'll also need to start by identifying three different types of surfaces you would like to test.

Now, these can be hard surfaces like concrete or asphalt or they can be soft surfaces like soil or even grass.

Now, I want you to make a hypothesis about which services will absorb water and which ones will not.

And remember a hypothesis is an educated guess about how changing one thing your independent variable will affect another, your dependent variable.

I want you to go ahead and base your hypothesis on past observations during a rain storm.

It is best if you can use an if then statement.

Not sure how to get started?

Let me introduce you to a few friends who can help us out.

>>My name is Elisha Carcamo and I'm 18 years old.

>>My name is Emaya Carcamo.

We did an experiment to see how fast or how far water can run on different surfaces.

>>We did an experiment on pouring water on three different types of land, on concrete, a grassy area and a bushy area.

They all had a downward slope to help the water go down.

>>Every time we poured the water we took a measurement to see how far it would get for each one.

Our hypothesis was that, the water on concrete would go faster or further because of the solid.

>>I was shocked to see that even though we pour the same amount of water in the three different spots, the outcome was very, very different.

When I poured the water on the concrete it's actually spread pretty quickly, pretty fast.

It didn't show any intentions of stopping and it definitely, if there was any kind of oil substance on there it would have spread downward pretty fast.

On the grassy area, when we first poured the water, it did take a while for it to spread out, but then it did spread out, just not as much as it did on the concrete.

When I pour the water in the bushy area, it didn't spread as much as the grassy area or the concrete area, it actually stayed in the same spot.

All the leaves that were there and also the grass and any other plants that was there absorbed it pretty fast.

So it didn't give it a chance to spread out.

>>Parking lots and sidewalks are more likely to let the water go down easily, which will cause pollution in the river.

>>It shows how much nature can actually stop pollution from happening because all these roads and sidewalks and streets and all the pollution that's on it from the cars and the people throughout can get washed away in a simple storm and end up in the gutters, and in our Bay.

(soft upbeat music) >>Thanks friends.

So we saw that more trees and more plants means less runoff, which supported our hypothesis.

Now I want you guys to go ahead and try it at home.

All right, now let's check in to see if we found anything on our City Bay saver scavenger hunt card.

Ah, a storm drain, remember we found one earlier.

Hey, Rick, I found another one.

>>Way to go Maya.

That's two down for us.

Let's see what else we can find on our scavenger hunt.

Community garden, fungi, bird, trees.

Hmm, some of you may have heard that trees can help stop polluted runoff and lead to cleaner and healthier rivers and streams, but how do they do it?

Not only do these leaves capture water, but they provide a shade and keep us cool during the summer heat.

And their leaves act like big umbrellas, they'll capture the water and hold it until it evaporates.

And when their leaves fall, they decompose and create soil, and that soil then absorbs water.

And their roots can act like big straws and soak up water nutrients, and can even hold on to the sediment and keep it out of our rivers and streams.

Many parts of our cities lack the shade from trees.

And they're also frequently covered in impervious services like asphalt and concrete which causes them to get extremely hot.

We call these areas urban heat islands.

Let's learn a little bit more about urban heat islands.

>>Hi everyone, I'm Dr. Jeremy Hoffman, the climate and earth science specialist here at the science museum of Virginia.

Census data now indicate that over 80% of Americans live on islands, but these aren't your usual islands surrounded by oceans and beaches per se, actually more than 80% of Americans live on urban heat islands.

A city like Richmond can be up to five degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the non urbanized surrounding area.

As we build our cities out of brick and steel and asphalt, we change the balance that natural unaltered landscapes have with that big ball of energy in the sky, the sun.

For example, paving green spaces into water resistant surfaces like roads and parking lots eliminates the pooling effect of evaporating water after a rainstorm, as we instead divert that rainwater directly into our streams and rivers.

Also buildings can absorb and hold onto more of the sun's energy during the day, and then turn around and emit that heat back into the air at night.

Science has suggested that, at least here in the humid South, our city struggle particularly, with dispersing urban heat away from the city center.

Hmm, hmm, stagnant hot summer air.

(upbeat music) Urban heat islands matter to us because as extreme heat waves become more intense, this disproportionately threatens the health of populations of people who can't afford to cool their homes.

It also puts a major strain on our energy resources that ends up costing us more on our summer energy bills.

But fear not fellow Virginians, scientists suggests that we can all be planting trees in the urban environment investing in reflective and or vegetated roofs and surfaces on our homes and businesses and most importantly we can encourage our lawmakers to reduce heat trapping gas emissions that continue to warm our planet.

>>Thanks for sharing that information with us, Dr. Hoffman.

Now let's check in with a family of backyard bay savers, who three years ago planted over 100 trees at their church to help throw some shade and help cool off their community.

>>I am Elena Contreras and I'm 12 years old.

>>I am David Contreras and I am 10 years old.

Right now we're in Branch's Baptist Church in the great playground.

>>What is behind us?

>>A maple tree.

>>Maple tree that we've planted.

>>So when did you plant this tree?

>>Three years ago.

>>Three years ago.

>>We dug a hole and made sure it was deep enough for the tree, because bigger trees need bigger space, and we also loosen up the soil at the bottom.

Someone puts the tree and holds it while the other person puts through loosely around it.

Then we put mulch around it and gave it a ton of water.

>>When these trees grow, you'll be able to climb them and make swings on them.

They'll be like fun.

For shade, where bulk under them.

>>Usually when we come out to here, like later in the summer, it's just like really hot.

So with trees, once they grow bigger, then while we're playing on a playground, they'll give shade here.

And they can grow really big, like this one.

I have one at my house, so like it's a huge mongoose.

There's a playground pavement right there, so then it could help us to make that shade here.

>>Like it gives shade, you can sit, relax, read a book, and they also give it more oxygen for you to breathe in here.

And they help with birding, birds nest in these trees then, and then there'll be more bees and butterflies that comes to pollinate the flowers.

If it was good to have like, if you don't have like a chair or something.

>>Yeah.

>>You can watch your back or read a book, like (indistinct), like have a feeling like you are at home.

It's like something that, it's like it moves a round chair.

>>Its like a- >>Like you're part of the cycle of creating a living thing.

Like most people might think it's not living, but it's living, it's fun.

>>I kind of feel proud that I was able to help my church 'cause we've been wanting trees for awhile, so I was part of helping plant the trees.

And now how they're really big and having flowers and.

(soft upbeat music) >>Wow!

What an incredible project, and an amazing way that backyard bay savers are helping improve their community.

It really shows that trees are a great way to improve the health of our rivers and streams throughout the watershed.

But what if you don't have enough space or room to plant a tree?

Well, we can start small and still make a big difference.

If you don't have space, you can plant trees or different plants in containers and put them on your balcony or stoop, or even in your window.

Check out these containers with these plants that we see here.

They not only look nice and brighten our days, but they will feed pollinators like butterflies and bees and just like trees they can soak up the rain.

Great, let's pull out our scavenger hunt card, and we can mark off trees and flowers.

Hey Nora, have you found anything for our card.

>>I think I found something we can add to our scavenger hunt.

It's this funky cool collection of plants.

Let's find out what that's all about.

I'm standing here in a rain garden or a bio swale, which is a perfect example of green infrastructure.

Now infrastructure is a word used to describe the human made or built environment and includes things like sidewalks, bridges, roads, buildings and even things like this rain garden.

Let's take a look at some other green infrastructure you might be able to find in your city or town.

First up, green roofs.

Green roofs are roofs that we actually add plants, vegetables, trees and shrubs onto in order to collect that rainwater before it washes off of a building.

So imagine this, it's raining and on the top of the roof, instead of just metal, tiles what you have instead are plants that can absorb that water and capture it before it flows off of the building into our street and sidewalks.

Some people even harvest vegetables on their green roofs.

It's a great way of adding more greenery and natural space into a city.

The second type of green infrastructure is a rain barrel or a rainwater tank.

So these are big tanks that are attached to a building and connect to the gutter system.

So instead of that gutter having all that rainwater come off, the building, it gets stored and collected into a tank.

What's really cool about a rain barrel or rainwater tank is that water can be reused.

So you can use it for watering your garden, washing your car or even flushing a toilet.

So again, all of these examples of green infrastructure are capturing and slowing down water and letting nature set its course and really absorb all of that water before it flows into our waterways.

Now that we've shared some of these examples with you, maybe you can start to identify them in your local town or community.

Next step, start pointing them out to your friends and family sharing with what you learned here today.

Other things that you can do, is start to plant that rain garden.

If you have a gutter off of your house and water is dripping off of your roof, that's a great spot to plant a rain garden.

Maybe if you don't have the space for a garden, maybe you could add a plant to your balcony or stoop like Rick talked about earlier.

There are so many different ways that you can get involved in adding green infrastructure to your city.

Just talk about it, brainstorm with your friends and you can make it happen.

All right, that's two.

Let's check off rain garden and rain barrel off of our scavenger hunt.

Hmm, I wonder if there are different types of animals that might also be able to help us filter some water.

I wonder if Maya and our friend Kaitlyn might be able to help us out with that one.

Maya, what do you think?

>>Look, there's Kaitlyn.

Hi Kaitlyn.

>>Hey Maya.

>>Let's go see what she's up to.

Hey Kaitlyn, so tell us what you're doing down here.

Is there something cool you wanna show us in the water?

>>Yeah, let me show you the oysters I've been raising in the Patapsco river.

>>Awesome, you need help bringing them up?

>>Yeah.

(banging sounds) >>Wow, oysters in the city?

So tell me what you do down here with them.

>>Yeah.

So in the spring, my class came down to the harbor and workers with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation brought these cages and helped us build them.

Then they gave us oyster shells with spat in them.

And spat are basically just baby oysters, you can barely see them but if you look really hard, you'll find them.

And so then every so often we'd come back down to the harbor checkup on them and see how much they've grown.

And then in the fall, once they've grown even more, we give them back to the workers that helped us in the spring.

So in the classroom, we've learned that the oysters we've raised get put on a reef and the Baltimore Harbor.

It's really cool.

(banging sound) >>Now, did you know that oysters are also natural filters?

>>Yeah.

>>So oysters can actually filter up to, one single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water in a day, which is pretty awesome.

They're really important for cleaning our waterways, not only are they filters, but they also provide a nice habitat through the reefs that they build.

These reefs will provide a nice home to different crabs and smaller fish, which is so important and why we need them in our local waterways here.

Even though the oysters are not found on our city base saver scavenger hunt, there's still evidence of life thriving in the city.

And it proves that nature can be found above and below the water.

>>I wonder what other animals we can find in a city?

(air whooshing) What kind of animals can we find in a city?

Birds of course, there were some awesome examples of commonly found birds throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed right behind me here.

We have ducks, Canada geese, pigeons, and seagulls.

Now what are these animals in the city telling me?

They tell me two things.

First of all, that there is available habitat for all of these different animals to survive and thrive.

Secondly, it tells me that there's an available food source.

So we're right here next to the river, there's probably some fish swimming around in here and maybe these different birds are eating some of those fish.

Also something to note, a lot of these birds behind me are probably getting fed by humans.

Now I wanna remind you all, it's never a good idea to feed wildlife, especially birds because then they become reliant on humans, throwing off the balance of this ecosystem.

Now, just because I knew these names of these birds, doesn't mean you have to be an expert birder to just identify different species in the city.

If you see a bird flying around the city, it shows you that there's habitat and there's food available.

I'd say we can confidently cross off birds off of our scavenger hunt list.

I wanna toss it over to my friend, Tiffany, who knows a thing or two about binoculars.

>>Binoculars are a great tool to help us observe and identify birds.

This is a pair I got from my dad but I know not everybody has pair of binoculars at home but I know that everybody has a bunch of these laying around (chuckles).

So you can take your empty toilet paper rolls or your empty paper towel rolls.

And these ones, I just put together with two rubber bands and a little bit of ribbon and I'm ready to go.

I took this paper towel roll.

I'm putting it in barbecue tongs.

So I'm able to rest that to hold it steady.

And then I can look around and check things out.

>>Thanks, Tiffany, I'm so excited to use these binoculars and explore and find nature in my city.

>>Can you believe how much we were able to find in three cities?

There was so much nature all around us.

Sometimes we found it high in the sky, low to the ground and even below the surface of the harbor in Baltimore.

It is really good to show you how nature is all around us.

It was also amazing to see the amazing backyard bay savers helping protect our cities and saving the bay by planting trees, installing rain barrels, and even putting in rain gardens.

There were a few things on our scavenger hunt that we weren't able to find, so we need your help.

I wonder what else we could do.

One thing I love composting.

It's a great way to take those leftover food scraps like banana peels and even coffee grounds and turn them into this amazing powerful soil to give to our plants.

So over time, these vegetable scraps will start to break down and decompose.

So that decomposition helps capture all of those nutrients and build this powerful soil.

Composting is easy to start.

You can start by collecting food scraps in a Tupperware container at your house.

You can then take that to local farmer's markets or community gardens that accept composting.

There are also sometimes services in cities that will come and collect the compost from your home.

Make sure before you start collecting to know what can and can't be collected and decide where you're gonna take it, because that stuff, as it starts to decompose, can start to get super smelly.

Another way you all could help us out on our scavenger hunt is to create an interpretive sign.

An interpretive sign is a great way to increase awareness and increase the knowledge of others about an issue that matters to you.

I challenge you to create a sign about something that you learned today and put it in your window or share it on social media, so you can spread the word far and wide about how important it is to protect nature in our cities.

>>We might all be in cities, but there's still nature all around us.

We just have to look and open our eyes and we'll start to find it.

Today we saw birds, dandy lions, it was an awesome adventurous day.

>>Cities almost always have rivers or streams nearby.

Remember rainwater can carry pollution into those local waterways and down into the bay.

>>Next time that you're in the city, discover the nature that's all around you.

Look out for parks and rivers and streams, and think about the animals that depend on those places just to survive.

>>Think of the steps that you can take to become a backyard bay saver, plant something, build a rain garden, go birdwatching, take a walk on the park and look for nature, and most importantly, teach others about what they can do to make cities more friendly for the environment.

>>Thank you for joining the Chesapeake Bay Foundation today, as we explored nature and our cities, we're all connected, and I wanna challenge you to become a backyard bay saver.

(soft upbeat music)