Hello,
I’m Celina-Marie Kuehne, and I’m from Germany, but I live in America since November 2019.
I’m a student of S.F. Austin High School in Austin, Texas.
The idea for the project
On Christmas 2019, I took with my family on a trip to Lake Travis. We were walking on the bank when an older man told us that we should be careful because the mussel shells lying around are very sharp and dangerous. Then the man told us that these mussels are a big problem here and they didn’t exist here before. As part of the TGPLAN, I remembered this encounter and dealt more intensively with the topic.
The mission
The TGPLAN (Think Globally, Problem-solve Locally, Act Neighborly) project is a task in the Academy for Global Studies of the S.F. Austin High School, designed to deal intensively with a major global problem and to find possible solutions. Furthermore, measures should actually be taken that actively combat the problem. I have decided to focus on the increasing prevalence of the zebra mussel in our Austin waters. For this purpose, I first carried out intensive research into the causes of the spread and its problems. At Lake Travis, I spoke to boat owners who occasionally took their boats with them on trips to other lakes and had the problems explained to me from their point of view. Then I looked at the problems for industry and water management.
The To-Do-List I have created is intended to give boat owners a recommendation for action that they can use to curb the further spread of the zebra mussel, even if this invasive species will not completely disappear from our waters.
reflection
During this project, some challenges arose, such as the limited opportunities due to the pandemic of speaking to as many people as possible. It was also very challenging that I only had a week to complete this project. Unfortunately, my family does not have a boat, so I have not presented any practical examples. But I still hope that I was able to contribute something to understanding and clarification.