Workshop Session # 2

Siembra Cottolengo

Room # 201

Global Issue:

Fight against poverty

“Colegio Bolivar”

 

Essential Question

How can we dignify and improve the lives of elders in Cottolengo?

Impact Statement

Siembra Cottolengo is a project designed to improve the lives of the residents of Cottolengo. We fundraised in 3 different occasions to assist the foundation economically by reinforcing a sustainable environment in which the garden plays a key role. The foundation was in need of resources to sustain different projects such as the nursery garden, and the raised planting beds. In the future these will help the foundation economically because they will create products that the foundation can consume or sell and gain capital.

Film Festival:

Presentation:

Project Description

Siembra Cottolengo is a project that we continue for a second year. Basically, we create a big garden with 10 cultivation beds on the floor and 5 raised cultivation beds. Elders in Cottolengo raise cilantro, chamomile, oregano, mint and other products for cottolengo`s consumption. Later, we pretend selll products and improve economic sustainability of foundation.

This project is sustainable because we add our effort to a foundation program that has 3 years existing. In this case, our activities complemented the quality of resources that they need to plant and grow more species. Our project was the opportunity to be leaders in fundraising for elders in cottolengo.

In this presentation, you will learn about poverty, causes, and effects, especially for the elder population. At the same time, we will show you how a garden can improve and dignify elders daily life. During our presentation, the public will learn about Cottolengo as a foundation in need of economic resources and how we dealt with this issue. We implemented different fundraising strategies that we will share with you. They will also learn about the making of a self-sustainable project and how to ensure that the benefits will be long-lasting. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1B5kJ52a5pvg8ZcEmk778yQ77JSK-0tQabYmds266vRM/edit?usp=sharing

BYOSacolas: The Plastic Problem

Room # 202

Global Issue:

Biodiversity and ecosystem losses

“Campinas”

 

Essential Question

How can we reduce the demand for single-use plastic in Sao Paulo area?

Impact Statement

We have surveyed 40 people by March 11th, using limited resources, social communication strategies, to learn more about how to organize a more environmentally aware community campaign about reducing single-use plastic.

Film Festival:

Presentation:

Project Description

We aim to spread awareness of the harms associated with plastic bag usage and encourage people to adopt more sustainable habits. Our group planned to visit a local supermarket in Campinas, Brazil in order to survey plastic bag usage. In addition, we created posters to promote awareness and inform people of the harms associated with According to the results that we received, the large majority of the people did not bring their own bag while shopping. We succeeded in bringing people’s attention and encouraging them to bring their own bags next time when they come shopping. We think the challenge of this project is that the ‘cognitive dissonance’ of knowing that plastic is harming the environment, but justifying a lack of change in behavior. Our project turned into how to change cultural expectations.

We found that to have a lasting impact, constant messaging, laws, and reminders eventually change cultural behaviors. Our posters serve as reminders and it helps that we (youth) advocate for people to refuse/reduce/reuse/recycle. People need to see the consequences of not doing anything and understand that it impacts life. As our example, the plastic bags we use go into the ocean and are eaten by fish which are then eaten by us: we are eating plastic. Our next steps are to continue to raise awareness and change our behaviors around using plastic.

We wanted to raise awareness about how plastic pollution is harming the environment and ourselves. We made posters and surveyed shoppers in 2 grocery stores about their habits. Our survey is the activity that conference attendees will do. We share the results of our survey and will compare them with the attendee results. Then discuss cognitive dissonance- how we can get people to change behaviors. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zw7rJs6nXDe0NQ6vbtsGWeC1V2VRVrX7cNN7YtlWHYc/edit?usp=sharing

GIN & JUICE: A Circular Economy Business Model

Room # 105

Global Issue:

Climate Change

“Carol Morgan”

 

Essential Question

How are businesses both profitable and environmentally sustainable?

Impact Statement

A circular economy helps all consumers and producers to have a sustainable model that helps the environement.

Film Festival:

Presentation:

Project Description

A circular economy helps all consumers and producers to have a sustainable model that helps the environement.

Getting Dirty Will Take Away Your Worry: The Greenhouse

Room # 203

Global Issue:

Deforestation, Natural Disasters, Massive Step up in the Fight Against Poverty, Climate Change, Education, and Lowering Carbon Footprint.

“Columbus”

 

Essential Question

How can we make the greenhouse productive once more through its sustainable remodeling?

Impact Statement

We have successfully served about 250 people and remodeled the greenhouse by April 2019 using organic products, crops, education, school materials, local food sales, and many strategies in order to accomplish our goal of effectively providing organic food and education on sustainability to the community members.

Film Festival:

Presentation:

Project Description

The greenhouse aims to provide local and organic crops to the school community. It does so by planting seedlings, harvesting them and selling them to the staff and students. We also want to educate the community about the importance of sustainability. A clear example of this is that we worked with second graders in the greenhouse to talk about composting and the impact that it has on organic crops. In other words, we are teaching young students, the future leaders, of the importance of having a sustainable agriculture and how this can be done. Over the past year, we have remodeled the greenhouse and produced one successful harvest. The money earned helps maintain the greenhouse as well as used to support STEM projects in our school. But, all throughout the project’s history, we have planted over 1,200 plants and raised over 300.000 pesos. Right now, we are planning on working closer with the community in order to solve various problems that have arisen such as pests and rodents. After this is solved, we hope to build another greenhouse at a low-resource school.

The greenhouse is an extremely sustainable project. This is due to the fact that our crops are 100% organic, meaning that no chemicals are used. The money that is gained from the harvests is used to purchase new seedling and equipment to help increase productivity. The greenhouse, right now, is really a team of GIN and there are certain people working there. Yet, we have been working hard in order to work with and consider the community. This has been done with an empathy map as well as a compass tool that will help us make sure that the whole school can get involved. With the greenhouse money, we also made a sign in order to keep people up to date on the greenhouse information. We have also worked by teaching smaller children about the importance of the greenhouse. In past years, we have talked to third grade classes. This year, we helped the second graders conduct a project inside the greenhouse and talked to them about the importance of sustainability and compost in organic crops. We believe that it is important for them to know where their food comes from and the importance of lowering the carbon footprint of the planet. Lastly, we recently finished remodeling and it didn’t cost us a single cent. We used all of the recycled materials and left behind construction products in order to remodel. We worked hand by hand with maintenance and talked about different possible designs in order to get the best one.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FFJ2bRuReVXBNtfmxOL4D2hOlHNuO1gedVWfbJEGvXM/edit?usp=sharing

One Less Bite Of Pollution

Room # 102

Global Issue:

Plastic Pollution

“Kingston”

 

Essential Question

How to reduce the amount of plastic used at our school?

Impact Statement

We have successfully served our school community 300+ students and staff by April 18 using awareness techniques, organizing fundraisers, implementation of a sink to be used for washing utensils and a bottle friendly water cooler. We have also turned our school into a collection point for plastics in our school community to accomplish our goal of making our school community less reliant on plastic utensils and bottles.

Film Festival:

Presentation:

Project Description

Our goal for our project was to turn our school into a more eco-friendly campus. Our challenges included changing the mindset of our community, finding acceptable replacements that offered the ease and convenience of plastic

To ensure the sustainability of this project we implemented it as a community-wide project. Our next step is to establish drop off points in which people can bring their recycling (water bottles, soda bottles etc..) and the partner with an NGO to restore a recycling service to go pick up the recycling at our school instead of at individual houses. With a little research and work, we want to create new resources that can be an eco-friendly alternative to what we have at the moment. If we can rally to stop the manufacturing of new plastic in Jamaica, then used plastics like plastic bags, bottles, empty pen vessels etc., can be melted down into plastic pellets that can be sold back to manufacturers instead of making and importing single-use plastics.

This year our GIN team worked on planning and restoring old ideas that had been implemented but stopped after a while. We gave back to our school by buying a water cooler that it made it easier to refill bottles, with the hopes that by providing it the use of plastic bottles sold in the cafeteria would lessen, which it did! We also implemented a rule in which students and staff had to bring their utensils from home, and biodegradable ones would be available, at a cost, if they forgot. Our goals for this workshop is to foster meaningful thought and bring awareness about an issue that has a lot of attention on it but not enough action. We find that many of the problems we face environmentally are due to not enough education on the topic, a decreasing motivation because of the hardships of the process and the false idea that someone will do something, somewhere. We can’t change the mindset of a person, but we can try to bring awareness. We created flyers and brochures to campaign this, sent out emails, and almost every grade in our school has had a presentation on the adverse effects of plastic and what we are trying to do to alleviate it. In our community, we posted the posters and and emailed brochures. New ways of thinking included how we can make the recycling pick up more sustainable? We found when people would save their plastic bottles, and when they were not picked up, they became unmotivated and started to distrust the system. The unreliability of the system discouraged the full idea of recycling in our school community.

G.I.V.E: Get involved, value everyone

Room # 101

Global Issue:

Massive step up in the fight against poverty

“Port Of Spain”

 

Essential Question

How can we make the greenhouse productive once more through its sustainable remodeling?

Impact Statement

We have successfully served about 250 people and remodeled the greenhouse by April 2019 using organic products, crops, education, school materials, local food sales, and many strategies in order to accomplish our goal of effectively providing organic food and education on sustainability to the community members.

Film Festival:

Presentation:

Project Description

Poverty, as we know, is an intractable problem in today’s society. Our GIN group has decided to form a community service club, that will make a difference in the lives of others. We will host 1 fundraiser each quarter, and the money that will be made will go towards each organization that we contact. In each quarter, we will be in contact with an organization of Trinidad and Tobago that addresses a specific reason for poverty so that we can help to decrease the root causes of poverty in our community. We have decided that in Quarter 1, we will be working with an organization called the Rebecca Ann Foundation. This foundation helps out families in need of food, water, and shelter, and this year, they will be building a park for a community with the help of money from our fundraiser. For the second quarter, we plan on working with SMILE. For quarter 3, we have decided to work with the homeless kitchen, an organization that gives most of the homeless people of downtown Trinidad, food and water. Finally, in quarter , we have decided to contact an organization by the name of Living Waters, and this is one of the biggest organizations in Trinidad. They help homeless people, they have a food kitchen for the homeless, and they give refuge to asylum seekers.

This will create a culture of community service in the school. This means that people who start this and continue this will have a habit of community service, and they can pass it down to other people who are their friends. This will make the amount of community service being done increase, and continue going up in the coming years. Also, young people who are involved in community service in school will continue this in their adult life, in other words we will contribute to a culture of caring in our community. Since we have made a community service club, we are leaving a legacy of this club behind so even after we leave this school the club will still exist. This means that students will continue to carry out good deeds for the homeless to try and solve the problem of poverty in Trinidad and Tobago.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1PfXtcs7ajnT93AHc57hkZdD8-j-qT69Z9sTAunUjdOs/edit?usp=sharing

Burn Awareness and Prevention

Room # 106

Global Issue:

Education for All

“Santa Cruz”

 

Essential Question

How can we reduce the amount of burn accidents in Bolivia?

Impact Statement

We have successfully served more than 1,500 people aged 8-18 by March 2019 by using power points and visual aids as resources, educational activities and games as strategies, and interactive methods to accomplish our goal of effectively organizing a burn free community.

Film Festival:

Presentation:

Project Description

Our goal is to reduce the annual number of burn incidents in Bolivia. As a group we have accomplished more than 400 volunteer hours and we have expanded each year by implementing new ideas such as: presenting to the mothers, in the outskirts of Santa Cruz, the amount of people we present to, and handing childproof sockets during our presentations. The challenge we encounter the most with is making sure people understand that burns are a real issue in our country. We need to expand our project to be able to reach even more people.

Burn Awareness and Prevention was created four years ago. The key to making the project sustainable has been to pass it down through generations. The creators passed the group down to us and we are hoping to do the same by involving younger generations. We believe sustainability is key to every project because that way the project will not be lost and will continue. By showing the amount of burn accidents Bolivia has annually and where do those accidents happen has encouraged people to join and help with cause. We are hoping to involve younger generations in our group, give more presentation in new places and in Santa Cruz outskirts, and expand our branches by involving other schools in our project.

Burn Awareness and Prevention’s main goal is to spread awareness on the danger/first-aid of burns of any kind. We offer workshops that include an explanatory presentation on ways to prevent and accident and what to do in the event of an accident, interactive activities, and games. Our presentation ranges from the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra to outskirt cities such as Concepcion and Samaipata. Our learning goals for our workshop are to teach each of the orphanages/schools so effectively that they can spread our teachings at home or anywhere else. We are aiming to teach as many people-both directly or through other people-as we possibly can. The learning goals for our workshop are a generalized understanding of the do’s and don’ts regarding burn first-aid, what to do in a dangerous situation regarding anything that can cause a burn, and how to prevent burns at home or anywhere else. We have found that making the presentation interactive makes it very effective when presenting to children. We make the presentation seem as if it is a problem-solving game. They come up to the front and tell a story of a time they had a burn accident and we get volunteers from the audience to help then reenact the situation. Once we teach them what should have been done to avoid the accident, they reenact it again, only taking the safety measures we taught them and not getting hurt. If children are entertained while learning, they retain information better. To make sure our message came across clear, we ask questions at the end of our presentation. The more interactive our presentation is, the more correct answers we get.

Waste sorting and Plastic reduction

Room # 103

Global Issue:

Education for All

“Swiss Curitiba”

 

Essential Question

To what extent providing access to essential information can decrease the use of plastic and improve waste sorting in a medium-sized school community?

Impact Statement

Our expectation is to improve the separation of garbage, produced by students, teachers and staff (totaling 810 people) in our school and also reduce the amount of plastic that we produce/consume. Last year in our school, each person used 54 cups per year, summing more than 4 cups per month (one cup per week). Now, with WSPR each person will use a maximum of 12 cups per year (one per month). We successfully achieve this result through education. Presentations and posters were essential for people to understand the problem and to behave in the right way about it. If we continue with our purpose, by the end of the year we will have decreased the plastic consumption by 72,3%

Film Festival:

Presentation:

Project Description

The project was developed to improve the waste sorting and reduce the amount of plastic that is used in our school. We think that the best solution to these problems comes through education, so we made presentations for all the students. During these presentations, we taught how to sort the waste and we gave some tips showing how it’s possible to live without plastic, in a simple and comprehensive way so then everyone can really understand and start think (and acting) different after that. Beyond all the presentations, we spread visual posters around the school, in strategics places so they become very visible. As waste sorting is a thing really hard to measure, the best way we found was to take photos monthly (and compare them after some time) and also observe the students when they throw their trash. The plastic reduction is being measured based on the amount of plastic cups and straws the school buy per bimester, so every 2 months we can calculate the reduction, hopefully leading to goods results. As the others projects, WSPR is a project long lasting and the sustainability of the project will be achieved by recruiting new GIN members every year and engaging them on the project.

We will always have placards spread around the school. Campaigns for plastic reduction and waste sorting, such as presentations, will be carried out every year or so, or as needed. Also, results will be shown (in form of placards) to the school community every 6 months, so everyone can see how we are progressing. The students in GIN will communicate with the school’s administration to come up with measures that reduce plastic consumption. As the GIN club grows, those responsible for the project will pass the information (and more ahead, the project itself) to new members and with this strategy the project will never be overlooked.

To achieve our goals we will hang up some placards to raise awareness of waste sorting and the overuse of plastic on the day-to-day lives. Along with in-class presentations in order to teach them about its issues and how to solve them. To be able to optimize the plastic reduction in our school, we´ll try to remove the plastic cups and straws from the canteen. Thus students and employees should then bring their own bottle or cups to drink water or anything in the whole school. In addition, to avoid confusion on waste sorting, we´ll standardize the trash bins and put a more comprehensive recycling guide for proper waste sorting. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1gqONywmFaCiVeIpVgmjLp7iw-Mf3vF5qcF1IISFLx_4/edit?usp=sharing