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Students take on Lexus Environmental Challenge
Thanks to Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth, many Americans have become concerned with the issues of living a greener lifestyle and the Earth's natural resources. A team of eighth graders from the Nevada Action program is no exception. Chris Enriquez, Bailey Harbit, Leah Creasy, Meagan Hutchison, Trey Dockery, Cameron Byergo, and Kristen Van Der Schaaf participated in the 2007 Lexus Environmental Challenge, a nationwide education program and contest about the environment that empowers teens to create a better world. The Nevada team was one of 16 teams that won a total of three thousand dollars in grant and scholarship money with their project in a land challenge that dealt with waste management. "The challenge we did, the Lexus Land Challenge, was about helping the earth and recycling," said student Cameron Byergo.
The students began working on this project in October when the students decided to enter the Lexus Challenge. "The eighth grade Action class last year came up with the idea," said team member Kirsten Van Der Schaaf, "we voted and decided to keep the program going."
Led by Action teacher Mrs. Peggy Pennington, the team worked with the local recycling center to increase the number of recycling bins at Nevada Middle School from seven to 39 bins. This project is a continuation from a program that last year's eighth graders began, in which they placed recycling bins throughout the sixth grade areas to see if students would participate in recycling the paper.
This year's eighth graders decided to carry on the project for the sixth grade and to try and extend the project through the whole building. Richard Brockman at the city of Nevada was very supportive of the eighth graders and helped with the extension of the project by providing recycling bins for every middle school class as well as a paper recycling dumpster for every building in the school district.
In the past seven months, the eighth graders have collected 2,239 pounds of recycled paper. The students collect the paper weekly, weigh how much they have gathered, and place it in the donated recycling bins. "We put the recycled paper in a trash bin outside. It is specially made for paper. When it is full, it will be taken to the recycling center," said Megan Hutchison.
The eighth graders aren't the only ones concerned with recycling. A group of fifth grade Action students have also decided to join in the fight to preserve the world's paper resources.
Student Macey Newton said, "We started planning the recycling project because global warming was getting worse. We wanted to make a difference in everybody's lives."
While not competing nationally, the fifth graders devised their own competition for Truman Elementary to collect tons of paper, literally. Fifth graders Abbie Landoll, Jennifer Mosbrucker, Anika Rasheed, Carly Greer, Skyler Laning, Hunter Lukenbill, Macey Newton, Max Daniel, and Andrew Quitno organized a challenge between the specials teachers, third, fourth and fifth grade pods to see who could amass the most paper. A box was put in each teacher's classroom and the Action students would weight how much was brought in weekly.
According to the students, their main goals were to recycle 500,000 pieces of paper, to help the trees, and reduce the amount of paper in landfills.
The competition started in October and by the end of December the specials teachers had collected 287 pounds, the third graders had collected 1,858.5 pounds, the fourth graders collected had 1,575 pounds, and the fifth grades weighed in at 2,366 pounds of paper.
Truman Elementary students and staff members continued to collect paper for recycling throughout the second semester and now the total stands at 14,000 pounds of recycled paper.
Both the eighth grade and the fifth grade students have done a remarkable job with the projects they worked on this year. Their efforts contributed to conserving natural resources. Recycling one ton of paper typically saves about 6.7 cubic yards of landfill space. One ton of paper can also save 17 trees or 380 gallons of oil. This means that the recycling done at Truman Elementary and Nevada Middle School has saved about 55.8 cubic yards of landfill space, 141.5 trees, and more than3,163.7 gallons of oil. This accomplishment is an example for what the rest of society can do to live greener lifestyles. If the Action students were able to collect 8,325.5 pounds of paper in one school year, imagine what the impact would be if everyone recycled.