Vision

Maillard’s Youth Climate Action Group has been working very hard this month to ensure that we are raising awareness on climate change, specifically reusing and recycling. When we came to the Science World Forum, we learned many things, such as water pollution, deforestation, and recycling statistics. But what really stood out to us was the crowding of landfills. We noticed that our school had a big problem with sorting our waste properly. We saw Gatorade bottles in the recycling bin, orange peels in the garbage bin, pizza crusts in the refundables bin, and more. We decided to make a change and raise awareness of this problem at our school. We wanted to improve how students would sort their waste by making a Kahoot, posters, weekly challenges, and sharing facts through our Live Announcements.

Action

Our school-wide upcycling project was a success and we got to inform people of new ways to help the environment and to get creative. Students were encouraged to find something that would normally go in a landfill and repurpose it into something new. Students came up with a variety of ideas, including converting old plastic bottles, toasters and ski boots into planters, cutting plastic bags into strips and weaving them into purses, converting old clothing into tote bags, creating jewelry using paper, etc.

We also had an ongoing recycling campaign that consisted of members of the group announcing or appearing on our live announcements! These announcements were weekly and led to our school-wide climate Kahoot! The Kahoot activity was a major success, and the weekly live announcements, which provided helpful facts and hints about the topic, greatly helped the students. The students were highly engaged with the Kahoot, and their cheers and excitement could be heard throughout the classes during the time the Kahoot was occurring.

Reflection & Celebration

Overall, our efforts over the past few months have been incredibly successful. We not only made a positive impact on the environment but also had a lot of fun in the process while spreading information about the cause.