Inspired by their love for ecology and their goal of maintaining the cleanliness of our campus, the Ecopond Initiative Club meets weekly every Thursday in Room 216 to improve and maintain our school’s koi pond. They believe in making the most out of their club for the end goal of nourishing biodiversity at RUHS. In each club meeting, members learn how to care for a koi pond and study ecology in order to bring the pond back to life.
Senior Kristine Laine is the founder and other co-president of the Ecopond Initiative Club. Her dedication to improving the koi pond inspired her to create the club and establish the steps its members would take to reinvent the pond.
“We take the crucial steps for our pond’s care to clean up any trash near the pond and vacuum the pond. We also provide leadership and STEM opportunities through working on hands-on activities such as testing the water inside the pond and then running diagnostics to understand what action we can take to improve our campus,” Laine said.
According to Laine, the club is an inclusive and engaging community that teaches its members new things such as how to measure nitrogen in pond water and how algae growth is affected by surrounding temperature. When Laine coordinates meetings, she takes a specific approach to ensure that everyone’s on the same page as she “starts from scratch to teach them the fundamentals.”
“I hope people take the initiative and bring their contributions to the labs and projects we conduct in our meetings such as the formal proposals we are working on for the changes we’re planning to make to the pond. Within the proposal, we address what type of plants we are adding to the pond and why they’re a good fit for our school,” Laine said.
Cofounder, vice president, and senior Zara Schwar has a long-term plan to invest in the koi pond’s ecosystem not only for aesthetic purposes but also to capture biodiversity on campus.
“Within the Ecopond Initiative Club, we’re trying to help clean up and reinvent our koi pond while also adding biodiversity to our school’s campus by starting with the pond. Our school’s pond in general lacks biodiversity. By starting with our club, we slowly add the natural value back to our school’s pond and grow from here,” Schwar said.
According to Schwar, the Ecopond Initiative Club teaches its members how to maintain a koi pond and the science behind the pond’s ecosystem.
“We are teaching people about the nitrogen cycle, cultivating a lab where they test the water content levels of our pond, such as nitrogen, and as well as how the sun affects algae growth,” Schwar said.
Club member and senior Jenna Shahid describes the dynamic nature of club meetings and shares the different projects that the club undertakes. Shahid breaks down the three stages within their club.
“The first stage is collecting data about the biome we have ready while the second stage is rebuilding and polishing the pond including: taking out the water, taking out the algae and then putting in new plants and fish. The third and final stage is collecting more data that we gathered from the tests and analyzing it,” Shahid said.
Shahid explains how the Ecopond Initiative Club can impact RUHS on a larger scale, even if only starting with maintaining the koi pond.
“We are always learning about how ecosystems work while impacting the environment on a smaller level within our school. Studying our little pond can impact nature on a much larger scale by understanding how we can enhance our existing biodiversity,” Shahid said. “If we all agree to consistently take care of all the nature at our school including the pond, it will only lead to improving RUHS’s eco-diversity overall.”
