New student conservation organization kicks for Gwinnett students

Under the leadership of the Gwinnett Soil and Water Conservation District a group of summer interns are launching “GECOS” (Gwinnett Ecos), a student-run extracurricular organization that will encourage environmental stewardship.

Their outreach engages all Gwinnett County high schools and focuses on four key goals: raising peer awareness of environmental issues in their own community, increasing a sense of self-efficacy in environmental stewardship and activism in the high school community, increasing community service and service-based learning, increasing awareness of traditional and nontraditional careers focused on or supporting natural resources conservation.

Once fully in place, GECOS will regularly promote volunteer opportunities like river clean ups, Adopt-A-Stream initiatives, tours of the Gwinnett Water Tower labs and water treatment plant, tours with the WSB-TV meteorologist, and more.