It was important to learn about the ocean and problems facing it. We identified a few major problems and researched about them using websites. Once we had the information, we felt like focusing on marine pollution as this has become a huge problem recently. We value the extra information we gathered and the learning experience for other problems within the ocean.

We decided that a school wide event that we could model for other schools in our community should be our project. After looking into some different ideas, we decided on a ZERO WASTE WEEK, which is an initiative where people focus on reducing waste in some way. We chose single use plastics since this is the trash we see the most in our school, on our playgrounds, and in our community. A project like this had never been done before. The next step was the planning process.

We created a planning sheet to collect all of our ideas for Zero Waste Week. This included the date, what ideas we wanted to have for the entire week, our school news segment talking points, daily activities for primary and intermediate grades, an early t-shirt design, and who would record/take pictures to help us document the event. This sheet was edited over the course of a month to prepare for the event!

Take a look at our ideas!

The numbers on our water filling stations at the beginning and end of the week

Our school votes for the marine animal sponsorship through the World Wildlife Fund

We are so proud. We were way over our goals for both of those week long initiatives. Our school decided to sponsor a green sea turtle through the vote. There were so many students who dressed up during the week, and we heard of many classrooms going above and beyond. Some of them read about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch during reading while one classroom even did  waste audit by throwing trash on the floor during the day and counting at the end. We learned that our school's event even reached Warren East Middle and High schools to where students in those buildings were helping collect items that were shared with us at North Warren.

The best parts of the project were being able to share it with all of Bowling Green on WBKO (check our Home page) and then getting feedback from our school's parents, teachers, and contacts from outreach. Please look at what some people have shared with us about our project. We are so excited about the impact this week will continue to have on our students and hopefully our community as they do their own Zero Waste Weeks!