Abington High School – Success Story

Mary Rodgers is a dynamo in action! For the past four years, Mary, as the service learning coordinator at Abington High School, has mobilized her service learning club to raise community awareness about the global water crisis through partnership with H2O for Life. Her students are serious about water. During 2010-11, Abington partnered with Totwana School in South Africa, and successfully raised funds to help bring water, sanitation and hygiene education to the school.

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The student leaders have created a lesson plan to teach younger students about watersheds. Their handmade watershed demo travels with them as they educate youth groups and adults about protecting their local water and conserving water. In a second activity, the students constructed a riparian wall that transformed a highly polluted area along the highway. Students also created a local video following a young girl on a quest through the city streets of Abington to gather water from a polluted pond. The students are energetic, enthused and excited about making a difference in the world. If there is a current crisis in the water world- Mary and her students are ready to meet the challenge.

This year, Abington hosted a water event, inviting surrounding schools to send representatives to a presentation to learn about the water crisis. Their outreach has encouraged more schools to take action by suggesting a partnership with an H2O for Life school project.

To raise funds, Abington has done a variety of events. They created H2O for Life pins made of clay, hosted a “swim with the sharks” party hosted in the pool with a showing of JAWs, sponsored a concert, hosted a walk for water and more.

Abington School has been invited to National Educational conferences to share their H2O for Life presentation. Providing opportunities for leadership and community engagement is a product of a great service learning opportunity. Thanks, Abington, for bringing water to four schools in the past four years!