Simpson University students clean up along Shasta River

Simpson University students recently spent a blustery day along the Shasta River, cleaning up trash tossed from a bridge.

The cleanup project fulfilled an assignment in the "Jesus and Aldo Leopold: Ecotheology, faith and practice" class.

Students Caleb Heatherly, Kayla Holland, Nick Salgado and Moriah Stock, and Cassidy Moran, a Southern Oregon University student, worked with a Happy Camp U.S. Forest Service ranger to select the cleanup site. While one suggestion was removing car axles from the river, the weather report led the students to choose picking up trash along a 100 yard section of the river.

“The most heartbreaking thing was seeing car batteries that had been discarded,” Salgado said. “They were crushed open from the fall off the bridge, and I just knew all of the lead acid had leached into the river.”

The CORE class is taught by Amy Smallwood, associate professor of outdoor leadership, and Dr. Michael Lyons, associate professor of Old Testament.

“In our class we are learning what it means to be stewards of this wonderful earth that we have been given charge of,” Salgado said. “I can see myself caring more and more about the earth, and this experience was just a slice of it.”