G4G

Vital Stats

Amanda H

Long Beach, CA

people helped5000
People Doing It 100

The Problem

Long Beach Polytechnic High is a big school with big environmental problems, from transportation to trash. This will be a two year project that will push Poly to go green, and in turn lead the rest of the district's high schools to do the same.

Plan of Action

1)Get bike racks for our school.(Finished April 21, 2010) 2)Help grow the Recycling Program at the Student Store and in Classrooms through education.(Student store is recycling) 3)Uniting Down to Earth, Green Student Union, and the recycling club, the environmental clubs on campus. 3)Discuss possibility of composting and/or gardening with the Biology program. (Garden is in progress) 4)Do a Green Rally, including a raffle for prizes like canteens, and a fundraiser for a green organization such as WWF 5) Buy or create education materials (with recycled paper)about recycling for teachers to post in their classrooms, and for students to take home. 6)Encourage teachers to participate in “Earth Hours” and use natural lighting for their classrooms 7)Have a photo contest for pictures of how Poly does and does not use resources well.(in progress) 8)Sell canteens to raise money for other on-campus projects. The canteens can be used at the student store for discounted, filtered water. 9)Put in trees in front of the gym where the trees were taken out 3 years ago. (in progress)

Project Updates

Bike Racks came in today!
I was walking to class and they were there! They're wonderful. Mr. Gandy pulled me out of class to take pictures.

Then, to add on, he was speaking tonight at a local restaurant. I had never heard of the place but my school administrator saw an article in the newspaper and sent it to me on Monday. Turns out I meet the man who runs a public speaking training center for girls/women, a man who runs InkPeace, a local ink recycling business that recycles all the ink at my school, the woman running for state assembly, see my middle school principle, and, quite significantly, a very motivated dad.
This Dad had a son who was one of many frustrated students at my school who had no place to put their bikes, so, last week he went and talked to my principal about it. Well my principal told him about me (and even told me about this guy who had been curious about the bike racks) and so we knew each other and didn't know it. He wants a garden at Poly, something I want, and already has the okay from our principal! We're meeting on Friday with my just pulled together student coalition of Me, Justin Parenteau(close friend), Sam Kushner-Lenhoff (a guy I went to Japan with for an environmental summit and the president of the club who was mentioned in the last update) and my best friend, Aubrianna Matthews, Vice President of the Down to Earth Club. Right now the plan is to have two lemon, two avocado, and two orange trees gated off for the Home Economics class. The same man wants to gate the bike racks, is willing to help me do more benches so kids at school can have a place to sit down at lunch, AND put in trees by our student store.

Phew, crazy day, happy Earth Day Eve!

Here's what the environmental club is doing for Earth Day:
"We formed three teams to tackle three different projects for the month of April. Since it is the month of Earth Day we have not been able to really gain any momentum in the past and this was a way to tackle several different areas all in the same month. Please read on and join one of these teams to help us move these projects forward.

Recycling education and outreach team- Leah (Team Leader) Presently we have many students and teachers who are not fully participating in the recycling programs that exist at Poly and we need to work to gain larger support for these programs so they are self-sustaining.

Coral Triangle World Wildlife fund - Fundraising raffle and educational outreach - Sam (Team Leader) The Disney film for Earth day is about the Oceans and with the added media around the oceans we can build on this to raise awareness and funds for the coral triangle.

Clean Air Regulation, Congressional Hearings Letter Writing campaign- Elizabeth (Team Leader) The laws that were regulating the clean trucks program in Long Beach were recently overturned in court, but now we have the opportunity to change the laws at the federal level. There will be a hearing at the start of May to explore changing the laws to regulate air quality in all ports and hopefully change the level of emmissions being released. To help this go through, we need to let our congressmen and women know that we want to see this change in legislation. "

We got the bike racks! Mr. Charles Gandy, the mobility coordinator of Long Beach is making it happen! The school paper did a report on it.
The bike racks are supposed to be in by April 22, Earth day. I can't wait.
Also, the Photography Contest was started.