Did You Know..?

• There are over 340 illegal dumps or vacant lot in Allegheny County. (Article - Allegheny County has the most illegal dumpsites)
  


• Allegheny County has more than twice as many illegal dumps as any of the five other Western Pennsylvania counties recently studied. (Article - Allegheny County has the most illegal dumpsites)
  


• People can be fined up to $25,000 for illegal dumping and even can be imprisoned for up to 90 days. (Article - Allegheny County has the most illegal dumpsites)


• Businesses, whether small or big, are the ones who do the most dumping. (ILLEGAL DUMPING PREVENTION)
  
• Illegal Dumps can bring down the property values of the houses surrounding it. (Environmental, Health, and Economic Effects of Illegal Dumping)
  
• Illegal dumps are sometimes set on fire to get rid of the waste, and since most illegal dumps can be found in wooden areas, a fire forest is most times inevitable. Even if the dump isn’t in a wooden area, it can put the surrounding buildings or houses in extreme danger. (Environmental, Health, and Economic Effects of Illegal Dumping)
  
• The laws against illegal dumping aren’t really put into effect and there really is no record of people who actually go caught doing. ( Article - Allegheny County has the most illegal dumpsites)
  
• Abandon lots are usually easily accessible to children and animals, and with all the things that can be inside the illegal dumps and lots, the outcome of them going in or around could be fatal. (Illegal Dumping)

Foundation Questions

Hello,

This is just an update of what my essential question is and what my foundation questions are.

Essential Question:
How can a community improve when a abandon lot is removed?

Foundation Questions:
1. What does the city do with illegal dump sites that aren’t cleaned up?
2. What are the consequences for illegal dumping?
3. What are the effects of an illegal dump site on a community?
4. How do those things change when the illegal dump site is cleaned?
5. What are people’s feelings of illegal dump site?
6. How do those feelings change when a illegal dump site is cleaned?
7. How long does it usually take to revitalize a whole illegal dump site?
8. What are good ways to go about rounding up volunteers?
9. How would you find out if a lot is owned?
10. Do you have to get permission to clean up a lot, owned or not?
11. Who is most likely to illegally dump?

Hi,

I thought that I could have a back up plan in case my plans to clean up didn't work, but it turns out that the back up plan is no good. I thought if my plan fell through that I could just work with Redd up Pittsburgh because I thought they had they're own team and already scheduled events. But it turns out that you do all the work and just call and have the mayor help out for a while. So now I have to get busy and make sure that my plan is full proof and because if it isn't then I'm going to have the biggest step backwards ever.

I think that I have an outline on what I want to do in the next couple of days or weeks:

1. Go scouting for good vacant lots
2. Look for support
3. Plan, Plan, Plan
4. Rally volunteers
5. Come up with a design or scheme or what the lot will be changed in to
6. and more things.

I'll add to that list later as time goes by, but now I must be off.

Thanks,

Cherie

once again, another update!

Hello again,

The past couple of weeks I've been flip flopping on ideas of what exactly I have wanted to do, but my topic has remained the same. I've decided to not go with cleaning up the hill side with the MWCDC and go back to my original idea, which was actually finding and cleaning up my own lot. I changed my mind because before the assignment that I completed today, I didn't really have a good idea on what I could do. But, after searching for a bunch of websites I found a lot of good information that would help me complete my original idea.

I still don't know where I want to go looking for a vacant lot because there are a lot of good spaces all over the city. I want to do it close to home so that traveling won't be a problem but I don't know if there are really any good vacant lots around where I live. I'm thinking maybe that it'd be easier just to go work with http://www.city.pittsburgh.pa.us/redduppgh/index.html, because I could still do the research on how it affects that community, but I just won't have to worry about gathering volunteers and money.

This is what I have so far:

Topic: Raising awareness of the importance of living in cleaner world.
Essential Question: How can a community improve when a vacant lot is revitalized?

I'm hoping that I'm going in the right direction. I'm pretty sure that I am comfortable with this topic and that this project will remain interesting for the whole time.


Thanks for reading!

yet another update

Hello,

I've decided that I want to kick out the finding a vacant lot thing and cleaning it up, but no worries, I've got another plan. The Mount Washington Community Development Corporation does an even every year where they go down the hill side and pick up litter. I have some connections with them so volunteering probably wouldn't be a problem, but I just don't know what my essential question be. I'm thinking it could be very similar to the one that I had yesterday but I'm not that sure. I am sure though that I want to do this hill side cleanup because its a annual event and nothing could go wrong, probably, unlike if I were doing it on my own.

I'm still working out the kinks, but I'm pretty sure that I am now going into the right direction.


Have a great day.

Big Update

Hello,

I've finally got a topic and an essential question, which is improving the environment by asking 'what do you suppose will happen to a community when a vacant lot is removed'. I'm going to research some benefits of revitalizing vacant lots, how some people have done it, and the program that the mayor is doing to make Pittsburgh look like a better place. I'm also going to look into where I should actually find a lot to cleanup. I have an idea where I want all of this to go down, but it's all not 100%.

Well, that's all the updating for today.

Thanks for reading.

Today in Class 1/9/09

There really wasn't much to get done in class. I had to finish the assignment that we started yesterday, and now that it's done there is nothing to do for 20 minutes.

I don't really have any plans yet on what I want to do my graduation project on. I had one idea, which was to raise money for some kind of foundation, but I don't know if I want to do that anymore because it doesn't sound like it would be fun.

Some ideas that I have are:

• raising money for something
• painting a mural or something like that
• refurbishing an empty lot in a neighborhood that really needs it.
• or something with animals

I guess I'll think more about what I want to do and hope that I come up with a good topic.

Topic Ideas

Hello faithful readers,

1. I haven't heard that much about about the graduation project from city high. I knew some people that had to do one, but I didn't really get all the details. All I know that it takes forever to get done and it can be really hard at times.
   
2. There is really only two interests that I want to structure my project around. Those two interests are giving back or raising money for something, and improving the environment in some kind of way.
   
3. I guess there's only like two big concerns that I have about the graduation project. The first concern is that it will take forever to finish and, that because it is so much work I might get back-tracked or even bored and fall behind. The other concern is that its going to be really hard at some points, and I don't know, I guess I just really don't like doing hard things.

Hope you had a great read.