Utensil Replacement

2018-2019 Arlington, Virginia, USA

Alexy, Jonathan, Byron, Emma, Ashlee, Marcus, Mifra, Nathaly, Jason, Mirhran, Gabe, Taylor, Bryan, Katherine noted that their school cafeteria used plastic straws, plastic sporks, and paper napkins wrapped in plastic packages.

They proposed to replace them with separate options of single paper straws packaged in paper, biodegradable corn-based sporks, and paper napkins in dispensers, like in a restaurant. They plan to put in paper towel dispensers for really bad spills. That will save on using too many napkins.

The group will encourage students and staff to drink right from the cartons instead of using straws, but they will have paper straws available for those who want them.This will make a positive change to the watershed because the school will be reducing plastic and recycling paper and corn.

The group also hopes to educate people on the harm they are causing by using plastic straws, utensils and packaging. Maybe other schools will cut down too, causing the overall amount of plastic to decrease. This means the watershed will be no longer be harmed by the cafeteria and community trash each day.

Utensil replacement implementation

Save the Forest

2018-2019, Arlington, Virginia, USA

Dante, Rodrigo, Elle, Karin, Lauren, Corey, Simon, Ann, Burak, Raphael, and Sam were concerned that invasive species were killing trees and destroying their ability to filter water. They researched species that were causing the problems in Four Mile Run, which empties into the Potomac River.

The students focused their attention on eliminating kudzu and bamboo shoots from the park near their school. They intend to cut the kudzu and uproot the bamboo shoots. It is their hope that the healthy trees will be able to reduce the FCB and other pollutants in the runoff to the stream. The students have a further plan to add trees and bushes to the areas around the school.

Now that the students can identify these invasive species, they will be able to protect trees and shrubs. The students have said they believe they will be able to educate their families and friends to help balance the natural filtration system for the watershed.

Pathways & Trashcans

2019, Timonium, Maryland, USA

Ridgely’s green club is creating a pathway at our school and decorating trashcans to be placed near the pathway. The people doing this project were Natalie, Molly, Julia, and Lauren. This is very important because it lessens the pollution that affects our watershed. The pathway would be made from stepping stones, so it would prevent pollutants from draining into streams. The trashcans would keep rivers clean.

To improve the watershed, there will be decorated trashcans and colorful stepping stones on the school grounds. One solution will be a work of art that will help improve water quality.

Pathways and Trashcans implementation

The trashcans will be painted and maintained by the Green Club. The stepping stones will each be multiple small rocks combined into one stepping stone. Ridgely students and staff will also be painting the stepping stones.

This project will not take too long to complete but its effects will be long lasting. The trashcans will stay at our school for many years and will decrease the amount of litter. The stepping stones will be long lasting and will allow for pathways to be made without hurting our environment.

This is a local project that will mostly affect Ridgely Middle School. Our pathway will be near a storm drain so it will prevent runoff into that storm drain. new trashcans. We will also tell students where the trashcans will be located. We will also speak to students on how stepping stones are better for our watershed than sidewalks.

The materials that are needed for the trashcans are paint, paintbrushes, and trashcans. The materials that are needed for the stepping stones are paint, paintbrushes, and stones. Since we need paintbrushes for both the trashcans and stepping stones, we can reuse the paintbrushes. The total cost will be $253.06.

In conclusion Ridgley’s green club is making a stepping stone walkway at our school and painting trashcans to be placed around the walkway. This is highly important, so we can decrease the litter that enters our watershed.

Bio Retention Cell

2019, Fairfax, VA, USA

Students: Lauren Dick-Peddie, Elder Hernandez, Nathaniel Kirk-Popham, Maya Littman, Myles Jones

What if there was a way to filter water of sediments and chemicals when it goes into the ground? We see that a bio- retention cell is beneficial for maintaining and improving our watershed health. In order to help, we would like to revitalize the bio-retention cell at our school. A bio-retention cell is a rain garden with a rock pit before it, which acts as barrier to collect sediment while also stopping runoff and providing water to plants. Our bio-retention cell, needs maintenance, with planting of new native species and adding rocks too. One of the results we hope to achieve is to filter out nitrites, sediment, and garbage before it reaches Virginia’s rivers and the Chesapeake Bay.

When repurposing the bio-retention cell we made it our goal to involve more people than just us alone. We have over a thousand students, who can get involved through volunteering with the after school eco-club. We can reach out to this audience by advertising and promoting eco-club, emphasizing on the incentive to get involved. We will organize community service days to engage the wider community and volunteers.

Bio Retention Cell project Not only do we want this project to benefit Lanier but we wish to expand this wonder all across the county. We believe that all schools should have the chance to experience and help care for our watershed. We will invite students from our feeder elementary school and volunteer form our high school as well. After all, the Chesapeake Bay is something shared of six states and we should, and will, treasure it!

The bio-retention cell has many environmental benefits. It is able to take in a lot of water which helps it filter out a big amount of sediment that comes from runoff water. Since there will be a layer of rocks to prevent any litter from coming through the runoff, water pollution will be reduced. With our cell and hopefully more to come, not only does it reduce the amount of trash getting into our bay, but it also reduces other pollutants such as road salt, sediment and animal feces.

Standing for Tomorrow

2019, Alexandria, Virginia, USA

Standing for tomorrow Chesapeake Bay

The presence of mold in educational facilities is a major threat to everyone who works or studies in these facilities. Using our data we add to the growing body of evidence of climate change. This evidence provides another opportunity to publicly demonstrate how youth are affected by this crisis. Using our voice as youth in order to impact a greater cause that not only affects one as an individual but the person’s friends and future students at the school allowed a personal side to a much larger issue. Supporting change through legal policy with scientific evidence learned in class as well as researched using skills studied in the Earth Force process empowered students scientifically and allowed for their growth.

The overall solution will be to work with local politicians to create a policy that protects students from the mold in public schools. This policy will force school boards to overhaul rules concerning mold in schools. The policy will also help to protect Alexandria’s art-deco style school buildings from rotting and deteriorating from the inside out.

Bird Boxes and Benches

2019, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

The Green Club at Ridgley Middle School wanted to build bird boxes and benches to add to a glen area in the school. The students that are involved are Annabelle and Helia. Right now, the glen area is completely unused, not very appealing, and not doing well in terms of health. The students’ goal is to make the glen area alive and healthy again.

Bird boxes student action Chesapeake Bay

Adding bird boxes and benches will benefit this project in many ways. Benches will motivate students, teachers, and other people who come to the school, to go outside and enjoy nature, as they can sit down and take in what they see. People will be more motivated to use the area and want to help make it livelier and more enjoyable, if it is maintained. Making the bird boxes will bring more life and aspects of nature to the school. The bird boxes will bring new plants and animals and will be doing something that improves aspects of nature. One could be air quality. When plants go through photosynthesis, they remove carbon dioxide and return oxygen to the air. That is obviously very beneficial to everyone! Plants also remove other intoxicants like formaldehyde, benzene, and carbon monoxide from air, soil, and water (Environmental Health Perspectives). Currently, there are many toxins in the air, so the final project will do well in removing them.

Bird boxes student action Chesapeake Bay

In conclusion, creating bird boxes and benches to put in the glen area, will benefit the school in so many ways. It will bring in more nature, add color, improve the glen area’s health, and make use of a large space, that currently has no use. The students believe that renovating this area of the school, will promote/ benefit the community in various ways.

Sort to Save

2018-2019, Arlington, Virginia, USA

Sophia, Sarah, Angelique, Mayli, Harry, Kevin, Will, Helonna, Anyie, Ivan, Bryant, Tikarra, Alexis, Siya, Hailey, Billy, and Maggie noticed how many items that should have been recycled after lunch were ending up in the trash, and how much trash spoiled what had been placed in the recycling bin. They decided that the solution was a better sorting system for trash and recycling in their school cafeteria.

They proposed to change the current way they throw out trash and save recycling in their cafeteria. In their improved system they will have different bins for different lunch items. When all the paper and plastic are recycled, their system will keep them out of the landfills and water below the landfills. They will also be saving custodians time and work.

First they will have a separate bin for trash, food, dirty napkins, and plastic packets.
Then students will pour out milk or juice into a separate bucket. The way students do it now, the milk and food make the trays and cartons gross so that they cannot be recycled.
Then, the straws from the milk cartons will be put in a plastic recycling bin.
Plastic containers will also go into the plastic bin.
Next students will throw their empty milk cartons into a separate bin with other paper.
Once the cardboard trays are empty any food left on the tray can be scraped into the trash bin.
Finally, cleaned cardboard trays will be stacked on racks instead of trays being thrown in the trash. Without this, custodians have to take out the trays from the trash with their hands, and put it in another trash bag.

The school principal has approved this change, and students are working out the details with the custodial staff. Having separate trash racks, bins, and buckets will help a lot. The result will be less plastic in the watershed and more recyclable materials kept clean enough to make recycling easier for everyone.

CONSOLIDATE VILLA ESPIL AS A BUTTERFLY GARDEN

2018 Villa Espil, San Andres de Giles, Buenos Aires, Argentina

EES N° 5, Villa Espil, San Andrés de Giles. Students: Mateo, Isaias, Tamara, Candela

This project is based on the winning project of 2016, Villa Espil, a Garden for Butterflies. It intends to regenerate a biodiversity production space, involving everyone in town, by planting plants that contribute to the return of many butterfly species that today have disappeared due to the lack of environment that favors their development.

butterfly garden student action villa espil

The new proposal is to build a small nursery / laboratory within the school premises in which students can learn with hands-on learning. The aim of the nursery is to learn how to produce native plants that host butterflies, which will be needed in the gardens of the town, and also come in contact with manageable complex biological variables involved in the cycle of reproduction of butterflies related to the native plants of the place.

This project will be completed December 2019.

First Grey Water

2018 Villa Lia, San Antonio de Areco, Buenos Aires, Argentina

EES N° 3 “Mariano Ustariz”, Villa Lía, San Antonio de Areco. Students: Joaquín, Rocío, Morena, Tobías

The project focuses on the environmental problem of how laundry water is handled, in a town without sewers. As a field task, students analyzed and quantified the scale of the problem being investigated. Proposed solutions to address this issue include an awareness campaign about the effects and possible solutions to the treatment of soapy water, and the development of grey water treatment module by using small homemade wetlands. Simultaneously, a dry phytoremediation swamp is being built at the school to treat grey waters from school bathrooms.

E.E.E (ECOLOGICAL EDUCATION SPACE)

2018 Carmen de Areco, Buenos Ares, Argentina

EES T N° 1, Carmen de Areco. Students: Nicolás, Agustina (all the classroom was involved with the implementation)

This Project intends to create a classroom-space dedicated to natural sciences and new technologies. This classroom-space will have laboratory characteristics in which native plants, both aquatic and terrestrial, will be produced, based on a novel production system such as aeroponics and the associated parmaculture.

student action implementation EEE This project combines other CFW projects; they used arduinos system and the idea of the 2017 winning project “smart light” that manages the light intensity and the day / night duration. They are using renewable energy, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal peltier cells and the whole system is robotic and managed by arduinos. They have humidity, co2, and intensity sensors and different types of luminosity.

They also wanted to make an aquatic system and a system with algae for a biofilter. They will be breeding native fish to re-populate the streams in the area. All this will be done within a research framework supported by sensors and powered by renewable energies.