jacqui123
Registered: August 2015
City/Town/Province: Pacific Palisades
Posts: 1
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My project did not involve any of the conventional facets of most conservation advocacy projects. I didn’t plant any trees, restore any ecosystems, or save any baby chipmunks. However, I believe my project tackled one of the biggest issues facing conservation in the modern world: lack of education. My work on this project began in March of this year when I came up with the idea to create a booth at my high school’s Earth Day festival to teach elementary school kids about the issues that plague our planet. After rounding up a team of three other interested students, we set to work on creating a fun, educational way to teach kids between the ages of five and ten about the environment. After weeks of brainstorming, we came up with a game that involved members of our team donning signs covered the with names of environmental problems such as “Acid Rain,” “Drought,” and “Energy Shortage.” The kids that were playing the game were then given foam balls with the solutions to those problems on them, like “Ride a bike,” “Don’t water your lawn,” and “Turn off the lights.” The kids then had to work as a team to figure out which solution solved which problem and then, when they had the answer, got to throw the correct ball at the person wearing the appropriate sign. The amazing part of this system was that the kids got to throw stuff at high schoolers while also having to think analytically about how to solve some of the planet’s most pressing issues. On the day of the festival, we were pleasantly surprised not only by the zeal the young children showed for learning about the environment, but also by the interest many of their parents expressed for learning more about how to help. Since the festival, we have continued to support environmental awareness in our community and plan to bring our booth back to the festival next year to influence another year of kids and their families to become involved.
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