More than 500 high school students from across the two countries have now taken up the challenge to find practical solutions to ecological problems in their areas. The participants in this Glocal Competition could win the chance to go to the Global Student Leaders Summit in Costa Rica and get to meet Al Gore.
At Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Massachusetts, the students were told to identify a specific environmental problem that affected their community and to find realistic solutions to the issue. The students were then given one month to research a problem, think up the solutions and present the idea to their teachers, peers and a panel of judges. The winners received the trip to Costa Rica.
The students came up with ideas to combat a range of environmental issues including wasted electricity and recycling school milk containers. One team examined the problem of invasive species in local habitats like purple loosestrife and water chestnuts.
Their solution was to create an education campaign that would allow citizen scientists to take photos of invasive species and tag them using map technology. This would leave more time for government scientists to do the more complex work around the issue.
Another entrant was a group calling themselves Environmental Paper Assault. Concerned with how much paper their school used in a year, they suggested the use of cheap laptops to stop teachers from having to use paper to print things off. Ultimately, Environmental Paper Assault and another group, Environmental Action Club, were announced as the official winners of the competition.