Speakers: Brenda de Luna and Young
Environmentalists
This mural is now hanging in the
Metropolitan Water Museum.
Temecula Library
30600 Pauba Road, Temecula, CA 92592
"Social Hour" starts at 6:00 PM. Pizza will be served
Presentation Time: 6:30 PM
February 9, 2017
Brenda
de Luna’s project is inspiring and I am anxious to hear their presentations.
Brenda de Luna wrote:
Brenda de Luna wrote:
“Last year began with a
competition in which I invited all my 8th graders to make a plastic solution
proposal in hopes of being accepted to the Plastic Ocean Pollution Solutions
(POPS), teen summit. This was put on by Algalita Marine Research and took
place at the Dana Point Marine Institute. Our proposal was to begin a
recycling program at our school and educate our students about the plastic
problem. We got into POPS and came back energized!
Not only did we begin a recycling
program, before the start of the recycling program we did 2 trash audits for
both the middle and high school lunch areas and purchased enough metal travel
sporks for the entire school and staff.
We used the Algalita slide show
and our data from the trash audit to educate our students about the plastic
problem and we made up pledge cards and asked students to sign them before they
received their Spork promising to never bring single use plastic utensils to
school anymore.
After presenting to the entire
school, we took the collected pledge cards and made a giant mural, 5 1/2 feet
long out of the pledge cards. This mural is now hanging in the
Metropolitan Water Museum.
- This year we are expanding our
presentation to the elementary schools in Hemet and challenging them to
take up the torch and find their own way to be a solution to the plastic
problem.
- Our HS students are looking
into local restaurants and challenging them to go single use plastic and Styrofoam
free.
- Three of our HS members are now
peer advisors for this year's POPS summit and the rest of the club is
going to POPS for the first time.
- Our middle school club did not
get into POPS. They attended the Sea of Change youth summit on January 29,
2017. “
_____________________________________________________________
February 13, 2017 - After
the Program:
The presentation was great. The young girls’ performance
was above my expectation. They enjoyed presenting their realistic
approach to managing environmental damage from plastic containers and utensils
at their school.
Their introduction to the scope of damages especially to the marine
environment was well placed. They reminded us about how the degradation
of plastic would release estrogen to the human food chain. The common
practice of covering the inner surface of metal cans with a thin layer of
plastic film, an attempt to reduce the interaction of acidic food with metal
surfaces, is not without consequences on our health.
We all need to encourage other schools to follow Brenda DeLuna's
initiatives and create programs similar to her hands-on teaching
technique.
Brenda, thank you sharing your students' achievement with us.
Thank you Margaret Meyncke for arranging this event.
