Workshop Session # 5
Waste Reduction in Schools
Room # 102
Global Issue:
Climate Change
“Catherine Cook”
Essential Question
How can reduce waste to get closer to being a carbon-neutral school?
Impact Statement
We have successfully educated around 800 people by June 2019 by creating a wide variety of bold strategies, and resourceful methods. These include a homemade tracker(which we used to educate peers about the importance of a close loop garbage solution), a zero-waste lunchroom program, and no Eco-Friendly skills elective.
Film Festival:
Presentation:
Project Description
The purpose of our project is to take action within our school community to: 1) Reduce waste 2) Improve recycling efforts 3) Replace disposal items with reusable products For our project, we engineered a GPS tracker to track where our recycling goes. We also conducted an audit of our school’s waster and recycling in order to write a set of recommendation to present to our school’s administration and board. These recommendation outline a 3-year plan for reducing waste and carbon out, moving our school closer to carbon neutrality. In order to create excitement and educate students at the same time, we taught a student-run elective about how to make eco-friendly cleaning products, bags, and reusable food storage products.
It is our hope that the School Board of Trustees will adopt some or all of our recommendations for waste reduction. By involving the adults in our school who how long-term, decision-making power and financial resources, we hope to sustain a focus on reaching carbon neutrality for many years to come.
Part 1: Background Research (5 minutes) In this part, we will share research and history about climate change, consumerism, and the importance of reducing waste. Part 2: Project Presentation (15 minutes) Next, we will share our project, how we got, started, what we did, and our next steps, including photos, a demo of our tracking device, and examples of projects from the eco-friendly skills workshops. Part 3: Active Participation (30 minutes) Our participants will get the chance to do an audit of their school and to begin compiling a set of recommendations to make to their own schools after the conference. We will give them the tools to do a self-assessment of their own school and to think about areas in which their schools could make positive changes in order to reduce waste and carbon outputs.
Leadership
Room # 203
Global Issue:
Climate Change
“Columbus”
Essential Question
Impact Statement
Film Festival:
Presentation:
Project Description
Hunger and Homelessness
Room # 102
Global Issue:
Hunger and Homelessness
“Catherine Cook”
Essential Question
How do hunger and homelessness affect our communities in Chicago?
Impact Statement
We have successfully educated 120 students and 12 faculty members on our topics; hunger and homelessness in Chicago. We also interviewed local restaurants, pantries, and organizations to learn more about what they’re doing in an effort to help hunger and homelessness. From there we used similar tactics with our student body to help the organizations to achieve their goals. Using what we learned, we were able to further our school’s knowledge of the severity of the issues.
Film Festival:
Presentation:
Project Description
Our group’s main goals for our project are to raise awareness within our school about our topics and to do what we can to help. We were able to successfully educate 6 classes about the effects on hunger and homelessness, volunteer at the Lakeview Food Pantry, organize a food drive, and make cards for people young homeless LGBT people staying at the Center on Halsted. Another goal we have is to raise 100 pounds of food through our food drive. One of our challenges currently is that because of our school being an independent school many fundraising and charitable efforts are prohibited. Another challenge is contacting different organizations because the majority of the time they take a long time to respond making it difficult to work with them. We need more cooperation within our school and organizations so that we can take action. Another thing we need is a larger outreach.
We have separated into 2 pairs to accomplish many goals, and to be able to work faster. It has been more efficient, so each pair can focus more and raise more awareness about their individual issue. We will raise more awareness to include more community members and encourage students by hanging up posters about the issues we are trying to convey around our school and possibly outside of school like in different buildings or stores, present PowerPoints about the issues to students in our school and faculty/staff/adults, and educate people on our issue. A way we will grow our project next year is to not only encourage other students to carry on our project but to also to continue educating people on the importance of our topic.
Stop It’s The C.O.P (Community Outreach Program)
Room # 103
Global Issue:
Poverty
“Kingston”
Essential Question
How can we create meaningful impact in our community through volunteering?
Impact Statement
We have successfully served 94 students and staff by April 15, 2019, using fundraising techniques and awareness campaigns to accomplish our goal of alleviating the stress placed on teachers at the Shady Grove Basic School who did not have adequate teaching equipment and students who are now able to learn in a slightly more comfortable environment.
Film Festival:
Presentation:
Project Description
2. Our C.O.P (Community Outreach Program) of Gin focuses on cultivating the communities interest into out GIN program. They work on spreading the name so we can gather new members for our team and be capable of more. They also focus on the fundraising for our projects. So when we have an idea to actually help our community they have the funds already so we can act on it faster and create a difference without the worries of having economic issues.
Our first plan on being sustainable is spreading the word, we are going to make the public aware of who we are and what we are here to do. We are going to do this by putting up posters and showing projects we have done in the past, host small events that everyone can participate in so we can personally interact with everyone and fill them in on our future plans. As leaders who want to a strong relationship with their peers we ask them to inform us of what they would like to speak out about, we then discuss and work forward into achieving our goal.
Our GIN project was not to only work within our school community but also throughout the surrounding community. We have accomplished raising awareness and fundraised for a man incorrectly diagnosed with the wrong form of cancer in which his insurance company was unwilling to cover the money he needed in order to get treatment. We also fundraised to buy teaching supplies for a neighbouring school, The Shady Grove Basic School. Our learning goals for this workshop is to start a conversation about the inequalities faced by those in nearby communities.