Last Saturday, Oak Hill Middle School students volunteered their efforts to make sure that Sweetwater remains more than just a festival in Baldwin County.

Stressing the importance of the drinking water found in the Sweetwater springs that led a group of early Baldwin County commissioners to settle the city of Milledgeville at its present location, a group of Oak Hill seventh-graders created Sweetwater pond to illustrate how a clean environment impacts the web of different animals who call a habitat home.

Inviting festival-goers young and old to spend a moment fishing in the pond, the students were able to share what they’ve learned in class this year about the environment, litter prevention and recycling by presenting participants with the opportunity to recycle litter they may fish out of the pond or learn more about one of the many animals that make up part of the food chain in Sweetwater pond.

“It’s been fun talking to little kids and teaching them about what we’re doing at Sweetwater pond,” seventh-grader Brett Chandler said. “Parents and kids can find out about natural habitats and recycling by fishing in the pond.”

Through the Keep Milledgeville-Baldwin County Beautiful program, Oak Hill seventh-graders are learning ways that they can act locally to ensure the sustainability of the natural environment. But more importantly, they are learning lessons they can share with their parents and the younger students who look up to them in order to form a drop that ripples throughout the Baldwin community and, hopefully, creates a current of change for generations to come.

During fall break, Oak Hill student Jasmine Cowart joined classmates Victoria Lamar, Quanisha Trawich, Brooke Vogt, Elizabeth Harpe and Kevin Sweat for the “Renew Our Rivers” Lake Sinclair Cleanup day sponsored by Georgia Power. The student group traded one of their days off for a day on, cleaning up trash on several small islands on Lake Sinclair.

“Our goal is to change our lives as well as the places where we live,” Cowart said. “It’s important, because if we don’t start now, then we’ll never see life the way we want to see it.”

On the brisk fall day almost two weeks ago, the students — with the help of Georgia Power employees — floated pontoon-boat loads of bedsprings, mattresses, tires, old liquor bottles, fishbones, coolers and lawn furniture from the islands to the shore to be disposed of properly.

“There were tons of things you’d never expect,” Cowart said.

Classmate Brooke Vogt wondered aloud why anyone on the isolated islands would need tires and some of the other things they found in the middle of the lake.

By participating in the Lake Sinclair clean up, the students are lending action to the lessons they’re learning in class.

Oak Hill Teacher Chuck Claxton said the reason for the direct action of the lake clean up is to open the students’ minds about how much trash is out there.

“Going forward, we can make plans to counteract pollution in the Lake Country,” he said. “The idea behind it is to get the students more proactive in what they’re doing.”

To help incentivize those efforts, Claxton and 10 members of Oak Hill’s seventh grade class have entered the Scholastic Lexus Eco Challenge, a competition for teens across the nation to make a difference in the environmental health of the planet, one community at a time.

Oak Hill is sponsoring team Green ExStream in the competition that challenges students to develop action plans for addressing environmental issues in their communities. The lake cleanup and the recycling lessons they taught with Sweetwater pond at the Sweetwater Festival are just a few of the ways in which the students will be spreading environmental awareness among Baldwin County parents and youth throughout the school year and beyond.

“It is good to get the message across at an early age,” seventh-grader Tori Hood said. “We can tell people what to do so they can pass it on to their parents and kids.”

Because after all, it is up to us to be the change we want to see in the world.