CMA’s Greenprize Project Wins Students a Trip to the Detroit Zoo

Students in Ms. Guillen’s technology elective class participated in their project based learning (PBL), last spring when they took on the Detroit Zoo’s Greenprize project! 

GreenPrize CMA Students at the Detroit Zoo GreenPrize CMA Students at the Detroit Zoo

The project is hosted annually every spring and focuses on students developing solutions for their school’s environmental challenges. Students needed to identify an environmental or sustainability issue at their school or in the surrounding community. They would then need to plan out how they would bring awareness to or solve that issue. Students came up with various issues they wanted to address. They worked diligently on their projects as prize money to implement their solutions and a free field trip to the zoo would be awarded to the top entries. When the results came in, Creative Montessori Academy stole the show for Wayne County!

 

There was a tie for 1st place; students of CMA wanted to purchase stainless steel water bottles to reduce the use of single-use plastics. They would then sell these to students and the proceeds would be used to buy materials to clean up the track area of the school. Other CMA students noticed how the lunchroom used a lot of plastic silverware. They then created a video to explain the idea to 3D print utensils so that the plastic silverware would not be used as much. In 2nd place a group of young gentlemen focused their efforts on awareness surrounding the importance of bees. Their podcast discussed ways to help bees and their slideshow noted what materials you need to beekeep. The 3rd place group wanted to build clean up stations along the Detroit Riverwalk, much like dog waste stations, but instead for the cleanup of general litter. The stations would house materials so the public could do so at their leisure. 

 

Despite a delay on receiving the prize money from the Detroit Zoo and some former CMA students have moved on to high school, the prize money is still being put to good use. All of the middle school students will be receiving stainless steel water bottles this year. Another 3D printer was ordered to support the tech electives endeavor into this field and hopefully inspire more sustainable solutions. The bee focus group will be donating their money to a local beekeeping group in Detroit. The clean up team will also be donating their money to a local Detroit group that does bi-weekly litter cleanups in the city. 

Students did an outstanding job with these projects. Their passion for environmental awareness and sustainability is inspiring. All of Creative Montessori Academy is extremely proud of them and cannot wait to see where they eventually flourish. 

 

Story by Ms. Guillen, Technology Teacher at Creative Montessori Academy.