Guillermo's Story

This year at earth camp it was great because we went to the Santa Cruz RIVER and I learned that our aquifers are 144 feet under ground and that is bad because we don’t that that much water any way so I’m going to try to get my family to take shorter showers and to use less water around the house. So I’m going to make a plan to get them in on this plan so that we can at least say that, I’m taking 5 minute and under shower.

SERRANO FAMLY PLAN
1. Make sure that the washer is full before you start so you don’t waste water on one shirt.
2. Take shorter showers using a sand timer that has 5 minutes of sand in it.
3. Turn off the water when your brushing your teeth so that it is not going to be running for 2 minutes
4. Tell my family why we need to do this and if they feel they can do it get them to sign an agreement.

When we went camping at the desert museum after harvesting the saguaro fruit we had to wash our hand to help get the seeds out of the fruit. The way we washed our hands was that we would have somebody turn on the water while you wet your hands, then he or she turn it off while you put soap on your hand, then he or she will turn back on until the soap if off your hands.

We had 27 people go on the camping trip and we only had 5 gallons of water for every body to wash their hands.  That is a very efficient way of saving water. the way that i put it into steps will save a lot of water. plus it will save you money on the water bill and i think that will make anybody happy.

Also animals in the desert don't have that much water for them to drink, so they rely on the monsoons and on the friut from the saguaros.


During Earth Camp we got to go explore the grounds and we saw a lot of animals. There were bobcats, coyotes, barn owls, screech owl, rattlesnakes, king snakes, tarantula, scorpions, ringtail, roadrunner, and javelinas. They are all very tolerant to the heat and to the drought. The ocelot has a broken leg and it looks like it hurts him a lot, because I went to the same spot where he was 2 days in a row and it looked like he didn’t move at all. There were 2 mountain lions. But it looked like there was only one mountain lion.

The Mexican wolf is huge, because it is light and dark brown. It was taller than a gray hound. It had very large teeth witch it uses to rip threw flesh to eat. Also it is in captivity because farmers keep killing it, because it is trying to eat and it is needed for a healthy ecosystem.


The ringtail is Arizona’s state mammal, a good friend of mine went up to Mount Lemmon to try and stay up and see a ringtail but she fell asleep, but when she woke up in the morning their was ringtail footprint all over her sleeping bag.