After Nationwide Vote, Teachers from North Carolina, Kansas and Michigan Chosen for Creating the Most Innovative Lessons in Environmental Education
Is there one inspiring school project that will always stick with you? Lessons learned in the classroom often last a lifetime, which is the idea behind the new "Green Your School Fund" created by Tom's of Maine in partnership with
Donorschoose.org. Teachers across the country were tasked with submitting classroom projects that help kids care for the planet and learn about pressing environmental issues in their community like air and water quality and sustainable agriculture.
A portion of the "Green Your School Fund" was set aside for an innovation challenge, where teachers were asked to come up with exceptionally creative green projects. The top prize of $25,000 in classroom funding goes to a project idea from
Cleveland Elementary School in Cleveland, NC. As determined by a nationwide public vote, the winning project teaches students sustainability as they learn to build vertical hydroponic gardens that use a solar powered water system and composted foods left over from student lunches to help the garden thrive.
"Providing our young people with real world experiences and ways to solve important problems now will foster a love of learning and give them a competitive edge in becoming future problem solvers," said Lynn Bradley, the instructional technology teacher at Cleveland Elementary School who submitted the project. "We all need a champion to make a lasting impression that validates what we do as educators, whether it is by molding our talents, opening our eyes to a new idea or leading by example. This school year, Tom's of Maine has proven that sharing their passion for environmental stewardship through philanthropy can change the lives of many. Our learning will never be the same!"
In second place, receiving $15,000 in classroom funding, is a project submitted by first grade teacher Holly Taylor from
Adams Elementary School in Wichita, KS to improve air quality and combat the school's growing asthma problem by having students create air-filtration devices.
The third place winner, receiving $10,000 in classroom funding, is a project submitted by sixth grade teacher Lori Barr from
Pinewood Elementary School in Jenison, MI, which will allow students to examine bacteria in their local lake and explore ways to make it once again safe for swimming.
The other seven finalists, each receiving $2,000 in classroom funding, were submitted by teachers from
Ashford School in Ashford, CT; Buddy Taylor Middle School in Palm Coast, FL; Cummings School in Memphis, TN; Ella White Elementary School in Alpena, MI; Nauset Regional Middle School in Orleans, MA; Polo Park Middle School in Wellington, FL; and Sequoia Middle School in Pleasant Hill, CA.
While a large percentage of plastic we use in everyday lives is recyclable, there are still those items that cannot be recycled. These include various potato chip and other quick snack bags, which are needless to say, quite abundant. However the company 3D Brooklyn, which offers 3D printing services, has come up with a great solution to this problem. They have partnered with Terracycle, and together they created a way to use this unrecyclable packaging as raw materials for their printers.
The process starts by Terracycle first turning the collected chips and plastic snack bags into plastic pellets. They then hand these over to 3D Brooklyn that turns them into the ABS PP/PE polymer filament needed for printing.
In this way, those using 3D printers get a cheaper filament they can use in their designs, and the world gets a new way of recycling waste that was not recyclable before. Since one of the main criticisms of 3D printing is the plastic waste it produces, either by failed printings, or those that need a redo. Using already recycled plastic for the process is therefore a great idea, especially if the goal is to create and maintain a sustainable industry when it comes to 3D printing.
A 1-pound spool of filament they create in this way is made up of 45 recycled polypropylene and polyethylene bags. 3D Brooklyn sells this filament for $24 per spool on their website, while they also use this material for projects with their own name on it.
With 3D printing on the rise, I’m sure we’ll see a lot more such ingenious solutions. Let’s hope that this also eventually leads to lower price tags on the actual machines, which is probably the one major obstacle to wider adoption of 3D printing.
Environmental educator Leah King-Badyna has a bonus question for students at the College of Coastal Georgia.
When your writing pen runs out of ink, you:
a.) Toss it in the trash can.
b.) Drop in on the ground.
c.) Stuff it in bottom of your backpack with all the other out-of-ink pens in there.
d.) Drop it off at one of the six recycling containers set up across campus specifically for pens, markers and highlighters.
The really cool students know that the correct answer is D. Just ask junior marketing major Eric Seals. The young man from Brunswick knows that CCGA’s 3,400 students go through a lot of pens, markers and highlighters. Without this recycling program by Keep Golden Isles Beautiful, that many small, plastic writing tools could eventually add up to a significant problem in a landfill.
“I think it’s really interesting because a lot of this stuff gets thrown in the trash,” Seals said Thursday in the student center. “Especially with pens and stuff because they’re running out of ink all the time. I’ll put all my used pens in those containers.”
Seals earned high marks from King-Badyna, whose status as environmental educator comes with her role as executive director of Keep Golden Isles Beautiful. The nonprofit organization introduced this new recycling program Thursday, setting up a demonstration table in the student center on the campus, located on Atlama Avenue in Brunswick.
Pens, highlighters and markers cannot be recycled locally. But Keep Golden Isles Beautiful collects these items and sends them off to TerraCycle, a non-traditional recycling organization. Terra Cycle is a global nonprofit organization that finds uses for hundreds of items that are not part of traditional large-scale recycling efforts, such as aluminum cans, plastic bottles and paper.
“Pens, markers and highlighters are things that are normally thrown away because we do not have the ability to recycle these locally in Glynn County,” King-Badyna said. “It is just another way that Keep Golden Isles Beautiful and our partners can help reduce waste and keep these things out of the landfill.”
Keep Golden Isles Beautiful has already seen success with this program in a school setting. During the Recycling Challenge in October, some 14 public and private schools combined to deliver 65 pounds of used pens, markers and highlighters in a one-month period, King-Badyna said.
“And that’s a lot,” King-Badyna said. “And once again it’s keeping it out of the landfill. It’s all about waste reduction.”
Local residents also can drop off these used writing tools at the Keep Golden Isles Beautiful office, located on the first floor of Old City Hall, 503 Mansfield St.
On campus at CCGA, students will find the clear plastic, cylindrical-shaped recyclable containers at the six locations spaced conveniently across campus. Matt Giovengo, a student at both CCGA and Brunswick High, has volunteered to empty containers monthly and take the recyclables to Keep Golden Isles Beautiful for shipment to TerraCycle.
Seals plans to spread the word to fellow students at CCGA to stop putting used pens in the trash, on the ground and in the bottom of backpacks.
“Finding a way to turn it into something new is really awesome,” Seals said. “I think students will be more than willing to put their pens into a receptacle.”
More than 500 people attended Loggerhead Marinelife Center's "TurtleWeen," held Oct. 22 at the center, at 14200 U.S. 1, in Juno Beach.
At the annual Halloween-themed event, guests enjoyed fun activities including a costume parade, face painting and scientific experiments. New this year was the center's Candy Wrapper Recycling Program.
Until Nov. 20, parents can bring their children's candy wrappers to Loggerhead Marinelife Center and place them in the TerraCycle bin on campus. At the end of November, the center will collect all recycling bags for shipping to TerraCycle.
The wrappers will be used to make school supplies and other re-purposed materials.
Downtown Oakland Association has plans to decrease the amount of cigarette buds that are thrown on the streets by implementing ashtrays in high traffic, bar scene areas. These won’t just be any ashtrays, but SPECIAL ones!
An organization called TerraCycle will provide Downtown Oakland with ashtrays and swing by regularly to clear them out. TerraCycle is an innovative recycling company that has become a global leader in recycling hard-to-recycle waste. Instead of the cig buds going towards their normal destination, the landfill, TerraCycle will use a special process to convert the buds back into everyday products.