We have just finished our CBL forum, and it was really fun! We got to present the ideas that we have been telling you, to our own community. We presented, answered questions, and informed people about our topic.
At first, we noticed that a lot of people just passed our table, and went to someone they knew, but then we realized that parents were going to their kids. So, we waited for around 5 minutes and then a lot of people came to our table. I believe our interactive element was really good. This is because it was a Kahoot! (Mini quiz), which tested if we were presenting well. It was also only 5 questions long, so people were happy to do it. After doing the forum I felt very proud, because we have worked for so long, and have worked so hard, and I was happy that the hard-work paid off. To prepare, we rehearsed many times to ourselves as well as our peers. We also made sure all of the data we would share was correct. The Forum taught us many things. I never really had the opportunity to present to multiple people when people are filtering in and out, and I thought it would be easy, but it is actually quite difficult. So, that taught me something. Also, it taught me just general presenting skills. It also taught me what to have at a place like this. You need to have eye-catching materials, and a cause that people want to learn about. Our solution as we have said before, was an instagram account. We had people direct message us a picture of them with a BPA free reusable water bottle. When they took the picture it probably reminded them that they had the water bottle in the first place. It gave them a much better chance of using it.
For our data we sent out two different surveys. The first one went a little like this: Survey One
From this information we could tell that people weren’t 100% sure about what their water bottles contain due to the lack of responses for question number 2. Because of that we made more effort to spread the awareness even more. Survey Two
As you can see our total responses from survey one to survey do decreased drastically. We believe that happened due to other groups sending out surveys at around the same time. If thought out more, we definitely could have increased our impact. If we waited until the next day to send out our second survey we most likely would have received more responses. Also, we came up with our solution pretty late, and if we did it earlier we would have had more followers and raffle candidates. Posted By: Noah We have come up with our solution! After lots of feedback last week, our solution has been born! We have created an Instagram account, where our followers can send us a “direct message” (DM). They have to send us a picture of them with a reusable water bottle. When they do this they get a spot in a raffle. If they win the raffle they can win a swell water bottle, and a $20 dollar gift card.
One of our problems that we ran into was the low amount of people who are actually sending pictures. This has been a problem recently. Wer only actually have three pictures. We have not yet fixed this problem, but it a major priority so we can really get this raffle started. So far, we have tried to fix this by trying to advertise more and giving speeches at group assemblies at our school. Posted By: Maddie Our group had a lot of feedback to the point where each time we got some our idea changed. That day was great but it brought up a lot of issues with our old idea. We had to change our entire solution. We needed to modify several parts of it.
Our previous solution was to create a sort of swab and/or a wipe which will turn a different color if it is rubbed up against BPA. Our current and final solution is going to be a raffle. We created a page on Instagram called bpa_free_forever where students at our school can send/DM (direct message) a photo of themselves using a BPA/BPS free water bottle. For every picture you send you earn a ticket. In the end the winner receives a special prize. Our community has changed from anybody to just the students in our school. Our solution is very special for many reasons. First of all, it motivates adults and children to use non-single use plastic water bottles which are very harsh to the environment. Also whoever wins the raffle gets a very large prize which can be used forever. If you want to join in our raffle visit the Instagram page mentioned above. Our solution should reduce the amount of plastic water bottles bought at our school. We will measure that data by going to our school pavilion and asking for the sales on the plastic water bottles. A few weeks later we will do the same thing and see if sales will increase or decrease. Posted by: Noah Over the past week me and my group have finalized our problem and solution. We have discussed it and we have simplified our problem to the chemicals in our plastic water bottles are harming us. The chemicals inside the water bottles are called BPA and BPS. These chemicals can cause many serious deseases and early birth. These chemicals are in almost every single plastic water bottle.
We have also come up with our solution. Our solution is going to be something that you drop into your water bottle and if it makes the water change color it means that, that water bottle has tons of chemicals and you probably shouldn't drink it. If the water doesn't change colors it means that it is totally fine. We have also contacted many people to see what the actual problem is. At first we thought that BPA was the only problem. The we got and email from a professional. That said we can not just be working on BPA we need to add in BPS because that is the substitute for BPA that most people don't know about. Posted By: Theo Hi, our project has gotten along further! We are very excited to share with you some more information about what problem we are solving, and how we are solving it. As you know we have narrowed down our broad topic of waste to plastic water bottles. This week we have focused on narrowing that down even more. We have decided to focus on the impact of plastic water bottles’ chemicals on humans. From our research we have discovered that children born recently have been already affected with BPA chemicals before they are born. If a pregnant woman drinks a bottled water than their baby could easily be affected by the chemicals in those water bottles. A study was conducted in Columbia University, and children of a variety of ages from 5-12 were tested to find BPA in their bodies. All of them had some. This week we have contacted lots of people to get more information on our topic. Some of the people we reached out to include Arrowhead and Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health. We reached out to arrowhead to see why they are selling their product. We found out from them that they sell it knowing that it is not good for the people that drink it. The reason that they sell it is because it is the cheapest and “best” way to sell it. We got a lot of our information from CCCEH. They are a organization based on health from plastic water bottles and we received a lot of helpful information on our problem from them. This lady, named Kimberley, was telling is something very interesting. BPA is actually not used that often anymore, but manufactures have found a substitute with the same problem called BPS. Because of this, my group and I will probably focus on all the chemicals in plastic water bottles. Sadly, the country has fallen for what is said to be the biggest con in American history. My team and I are working to fix this problem. This con is what is known as the “Great Bottled Water Con.” We have been tricked in a big way, and now it is up to the children of the future to stop this once and for all. We have been tricked into thinking that bottled water is the best, and the cleanist, but this is entirely untrue. The companies that make bottled water have told us that tap water isn’t clean. We instantly believed them, but it isn’t true. In fact, almost ¾ of the bottled water companies actually are just bottling filtered tap water. This confused me at first. If it is just tap water, then isn’t safe to drink? Aren’t I saying that tap water is fine? Yes. I am. But, to keep the water clean and healthy for us to drink ( it isn’t healthy) manufacturers are putting chemicals into the plastic. These chemicals are called BPAs. They are bad for our bodies. They have been known for:
Posted by: Maddie Hi, we are members of Windward school developing a project on plastic waste. We were put into a group to help solve a specific problem that is related to waste. We have narrowed down our topic just a little bit so far, and we are going to start researching plastic water bottles.
As a person who spends a lot of time surfing and in the ocean. I have found loads of plastic trash in the ocean and when I see it I feel I have to do something. It is damaging our corals and marine life. Soon there will be no surfing if we don’t do something soon. Plastic waste is a huge problem around the world. Plastic is material used for almost everything you would see in your everyday life. Companies use plastic because it is sustainable and it will basically last forever. We have decided to focus on plastic water bottles. It is completely damaging our ocean and is a problem that needs to be fixed instantly. As a person who spends a lot of time surfing and in the ocean. I have found loads of plastic trash in the ocean and when I see it I feel I have to do something. It is damaging our corals and marine life. Soon there will be no surfing if we don’t do something soon. Posted by: Noah |
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AuthorsNoah Cohen |