By Tessa Hurr
Grade 7

At the beginning of the school year, Mr. Eric Harrington, the seventh-grade Life Science teacher at St. Margaret’s Episcopal School, presented to the class the idea of entering a contest called QuikSCience Challenge, based on our Marine Biology unit. The contest incorporated components of our seventh-grade Catalina Island Marine Institute (CIMI) trip and Marine Biology unit.

All of the students in the seventh grade participated in the QuickSCience Challenge. We were given the option of entering the actual contest or just doing the project. Out of all the students, six groups competed for the two spots to represent our school. A mini contest was held at the school and two groups continued on.

The first group was The Recycle Buddies. The members of our group were: Tessa Hurr, Brooke Pigneri, Caroline Smith, Sarah Phelan, Lauren Cooper, and Palmer Knutson. Our project was about recycling, its importance, and how it could save our planet. The second group was made up of Julianna Coleman, Lauren Golledge, Amanda Pasternack and Lara Ohanesian. They were the Toxic Busters. Their main lesson was how toxic waste can be hazardous to the environment. Lauren Golledge recalls, “For me, I was excited to do something, like, toxic waste, that not everybody even knows about. The learning experience was fun because we all learned so much about what can hurt our planet in our home.”

On March 19, the students from both teams had the chance to visit the Quiksilver Headquarters and view other schools’ projects and meet with other students from all over Southern California. We also met scientists from USC Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies and people from Quiksilver. The Toxic Busters team won an award for Best Community Service. The team won a cash prize and recognition for their efforts.

Brooke Pigneri, a member of the team Recycle Buddies, said that during the QuikSCience Challenge, “I learned how to work together as a team, and to give my own individual effort. I also learned how to be flexible when my ideas wouldn’t work or [when] we all didn’t agree.” About all of the students thought this same way, and in the end, they all were elated that they had chosen to join the contest and not let an opportunity like this go by. Caroline Smith, another member of the Recycle Buddies, said: “I learned that this challenge wasn’t about winning; it was about the feeling of accomplishment we all got when we were done with this project.”

The whole goal of this project was to make students more aware of the units “Enduring Understanding, and the environmental dangers that we are putting in our home, the earth. Discovering new ideas that could maybe one day save us is so important and it should start with the young. Lauren Cooper says, “Hopefully one day the world will have no pollution, and I think our project will alert people on the dangers of what we do to our earth, and how we can solve it.”

Tags: Academics, Community, Middle School