Check it out: Project Change Service Initiative Final Project!
This Spring, we hosted a six-week virtual program called Project Change Service Initiative with middle schoolers from across Montgomery County.
For the final project, each student created a piece of material art made of recyclable materials. Each student had a different call to action. Some students are using their projects to address climate change, others to talk about excess waste, and more.
Here are their final projects:
Meet Clara:
Clara is an MCPS student who has a passion for taking care of the community and the world. She is into community service and this project really meant a lot to her. She is in her school’s student government and is passionate about many issues such as racism and climate change.
Project Description: My terrarium is made up of plants from my own backyard! I hope to teach viewers of this post that we can all be environmentally friendly by using plants in creative ways. I love experimenting with plants and can’t wait for the summer to come! Every summer, I form a garden with my family. You can be creative with your plants and show you care about the environment.
The terrarium includes all sorts of plants! This includes a Japanese Fern, some grasses, a few clovers, a purplish plant (unknown of exact type), and a baby maple. Clara put a layer of rocks on the bottom of the terrarium (not shown in the picture) to provide good drainage. Next, she put a 4-5 inch layer of soil. After, she placed in plants and immediately watered them. This way, the plants won’t get stressed in their new environment and can survive. Finally, she put down small rocks and a stick next to plants as decorations.
Meet Blen:
Blen is a 7th grader at Eastern Middle School.
Project Description: When we think about climate change, it can feel daunting. There are so many problems, and how can one person solve it? Doing small things, every day will help to make a difference. I made this “Go Green Challenge” as a way to get people to start making changes to their everyday lives to better ourselves, our families, and the planet.
A “Go Green Challenge” calendar. There are 30 climate-centered tasks someone can do. You can task yourself with one a day for a month challenge, or spread it out. However, you want!
Meet Mieraf:
The creator of this project is 13-year-old Mieraf, a 7th grader at Rosa Parks Middle School. She loves to spend time outside with family and is an avid book reader.
Project Description: I created this project because I consider myself a concerned environmentalist. As I look at the waste we have produced as a society, I am worried about the future of our planet. I wanted to be proactive about this problem and decided to make a project and flyer to educate the community on how waste is not the only option. The main message of my project is that water bottles are an item that create so much waste in the world and it does not have to be that way. I wanted to introduce many people to the idea of reusing their water bottles and repurposing them as new items.
Meet Lev:
Lev is a 7th-grade student at Tilden Middle School. Since he collected many different bottle caps he found, he thought it would be a good idea to incorporate them into his life somehow.
Project Description: As I walked along sidewalks and city streets, I was always able to find bottle caps, littering the asphalt and concrete walkways. I felt really bad throwing these bottlecaps away because I knew they were gonna wind up somewhere where they could hurt someone or something.
These ways of using bottle caps instead of household items can decrease your spending rate, on more checkers boards and they are also very easy to find and set up. I love drinking tea, but I hate it when it stains my white desk, the solution? A coaster made easily from bottle caps which eliminates the stain because my cup never touches my desk. There are many easy different ways to make bottle caps not litter and something that would harm the environment, but something that is easily usable, and helps decrease your spending rate on things that you might also throw away just as easily. Bottle caps can also provide easy building materials instead of legos, wooden bricks that are less durable and also more expensive, where as, bottle caps are something you can find just laying about.
