Students from ISU biology clubs waded through College Creek Saturday in an effort to make campus, as well as Ames, look a little bit nicer.

Armed with gloves, trash bags, flashlights and metal stretchers to pull out larger items of trash, more than 40 students and Ames residents cleaned up the creek between Knoll Road and State Street, including Lake LaVerne, Saturday.

Jim Holtz, a botany academic adviser and sponsor of the Skunk River Navy and Biology Education Success Teams (BEST), said one of the goals of the cleanup was to “give the participants more of an appreciation for the environment and to see how much trash there actually is.”

He said it is nice to be able to sometimes give back to the community, even for just a few hours.

Last year the team picked trash out of the creek from the Memorial Union down to Elwood Drive, Holtz said.

Since it had rained before the cleanup last year, the weather was cold and the creek was muddy, but Saturday’s sunny skies made for a more pleasant experience.

Holtz said most of the trash picked up is smaller items, but there are always some larger items such as pipes and bicycles. One of the bicycles fished out last year was even able to be cleaned up and used, he said.

James Colbert, associate professor of botany and head of the Skunk River Navy, said this is the second year the cleanup has occurred.

He said the Soil and Water Conservation club, the Biology Education Teaching and Learning Club, BEST, the Animal Ecology Learning Community and several other organizations formed the collaboration partially to raise awareness about the polluted state of the streams.

“There are a number of pretty serious issues facing our streams,” Colbert said.

However, he said trash is just part of the problem. Issues such as soil erosion cause many greater problems for streams, but he said it would take a much larger-scale operation to solve problems of this nature.

Andrea Blong, senior in environmental science and secretary of the Soil and Water Conservation Club, said she hoped the cleanup would give students “a greater appreciation of the aesthetics of our campus.”

This is not the only cleanup of this nature that biology clubs at Iowa State participate in during the year.

The Skunk River Navy cleans up the Skunk River every fall.