SMC Creates Public Service Announcement: "Save Water"
Being eco-friendly and "green" is becoming second nature to California citizens and is becoming even more important in schools. The majority of schools in California are moving forward and striving to become "green". Santa Monica College is well on its way to this destination.
Recently SMC released a Public Service Announcement for "SMC Global Citizens for Water Conservation," which was produced and created by SMC students and faculty. The announcement conveyed the message that everyone should conserve water for the greater good of the world.
SMC, who was number fifteen out of 40 entries was picked to receive the $10,000 Southern California World Water forum grant back in 2008, used the money to produce the video. The grant was awarded by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, according to public information officer Bruce Smith.
The SMC crew also had various students from Professor Amber Katherine's Environmental Politics course where students from all over the world spoke about water and the importance of water in their own culture.
"I am very proud of this public service announcement," said Professor Katherine, who led the team that produced the video.
Winning the grant was part of the inspiration for selecting a "water" theme as the SMC global citizenship theme of the year, according to Smith.
Nick Pawlikowski, 18, and SMC second semester freshmen who is originally from Poland speaks about the abundance of water in Poland and how people don't really push the envelope on being conservative, unless it is by choice.
"I believe conserving water is an important and good thing for the environment and people. Overuse of natural waters can exponentially degrade the quality of groundwater, and we use more resources to purify the water that we do use," said Pawlikowski.
According to the California Rural Water Association, even withthe use of conservation technologies such as low flow toilets and showerheads, water demands are expected to grow 2 million to 3 million acre-feet per year to meet the growing population. Since California's population of over 36 million is expected to increase to close to 53 million by the year 2030, more colleges, universities and citizens are likely to follow the trend in water conservation.
Even though more people are becoming aware of the water problem, many are still uneducated on the matter, which is why SMC students and faculty produced the water conservation PSA. When water supplies are not adequate to meet water demands we are likely to be faced with a water shortage which could lead to further drought problems in our region.
The PSA can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-Cde29lYXE