Our Project for the end of the term is to develop innovative and fun ways to reduce the waste of end-of-year move-out because there is much waste generated at the end of the year when people move out of the proctor. So our group came up with the idea that people can donate the stuff they do not need at the end of the year, and we can sell it at a yard sale to the community of Andover or even greater. So people will donate things, and we put them down in their dorm. After that, we will price each item and then sell it at the yard sale; the amount of money we make will be given back to each dorm as dorm money.

We divide the nine people group into three groups, and my group is responsible for fundraising and managing the money. So we decided that whatever amount we sold, we would split and give it back to the dorm, and then they would decide what to do with the money. 

We are starting the announcements this week through Social media and announcements, and the donation will happen before Sunday. We are selling the stuff on Sunday afternoon. 

So far, I think we have put some reasonable effort into brainstorming the idea and different ways of approaching this; we are finalizing the process now, so we just have to start advertising for it. 

(All Photo Created by Zack Cong Unless Otherwise Stated)

UP DATE

The Tag Sale will be on Sunday 21st, 2023 and it is going to be happening over at at the slope behind chapple from2 to 4 o'clock. Since last class we have accomplished a lot of things. We have made some poster for advertisement and posted though social media. Ryan, Jackson and me did a assembly announcement during today and yesterday. And with Delaney email, the Tag Sale made up to the weekend activity list. 

This is the poster that Ryan, Barry, and Winnie came up. It is posted on social media for advertising very fancy.

I am trying to organize my room and search for donations; I also had a dorm meeting talking with the people to try to get them to donate something. We are still in the process of cleaning up. We have finalized the sales process. We realized that weighing the goods and allowing individual item sales, rather than as part of a dorm, would be more manageable. Each dorm will receive the money they raise; there will not be a central prize pot for the winning dorm.

Collection boxes are being placed in dorms; we hope they will be filled. We will present our progress and outcomes during Proctor's Innovation night on May 23rd from 6-7 pm. Our presentation will highlight what we achieved, how the sale went, and why we focus on recovering items instead of discarding them.

It is still a question of whether this will work, but we have to do it; we have done all we can do ourselves to try to get people to participate in it. I have contributed to the group with a good amount of effort, I bring up some good ideas, but people think it is too complex and rejects them, which is fine. I email Scott to ask him to use the proctor's social media account to advertise it. While doing some research, I learned how much trash is thrown out each year, and such simple things as recycling can help with the trash problem so much. I am interested in this project and its outcome. I cannot believe that we came up with a townwide Tag all in less than two weeks; it is entertaining to see what we can accomplish in such a short amount of time.

(All Photo Created By Zack Cong Unless Otherwise Stated)

Final Blog Spring Term May 23rd Tuesday 2023

I interviewed Sarah McIntyre and Scott Allenby, who expressed some ways we can improve the tag sale in the future.

Scott stated: " It is amazing that you guys pulled this thing together in a short amount of time. In the future, we can post some posters around town places so more people can know we are having a tag sale. Also, there is a group email the town has for the active members of the town; we could have just sent them an email and let them spread the word.

Also, it would be a good idea to put a sign on the grassland next to the road so that when people are driving by, they know we are having a tag sale because many people would probably be wondering what is happening and then drive away." 

Sarah stated: " It would be better next time if we have prepared some change for people, because we are selling at a very low cost, one dollar or two dollars, most people don't have that much change. So it is our job to prepare some for them."

Reflections

Overall, as a class, we did a great job of doing the tag sale and innovation night. We completed our goal and task, although there were some difficulties occasionally, but we all worked together and made it through! We have eliminated much waste from the end-of-year cleanup; we repurpose them, and people who need it get a great deal. During innovation night, we also educated people on the waste problems and why we are making a tag sale. This term has been fun, exciting, and difficult, but we have made it through. Of course, there can always be an improvement in how we did things, but as the first group doing this, I think we did a great job.

Self Reflections

I think my learning highlights from the spring term is how much time we have before global warming turns most land into the ocean. It was mind bending when I saw that the place I live in would be submerged under water in the next 50 years if we do not slow down global warming. Moreover, I learned about how much money and carbon emissions we can save when we just switch out light bulbs to LED light bulbs. Overall this has been a great year of APES, and I had a lot of fun in it. Moving forward, I hope that I can take more classes around this topic.

One lesson I will always bring with me is that we only have one Earth, and we are destroying it quickly. There is no second plant just like Earth, so eliminate some trash, recycle, resue, and save some energy to save this world we love deeply together.

(All photo created by zack cong unless otherwise stated)