Local Fourth Graders Challenged to SavEarth

Alyssa Dorrien, left, and Kady Turner, along with teacher Taru Joshi, create a model for a recycling truck to be manufactured from all recycled material for Project SavEarth.
Ed Ruping/ The Chronicle

The College of Sciences is always happy to see innovations coming from our most valuable resource, future students. A large group of fourth graders will be showcasing their months long research in areas of conservation, recycling and other ways to help save the earth Saturday April 5 in Engineering II in the atrium. We’re excited to see what the students have come up with.

Project SavEarth is a pilot program challenging local fourth-graders to think outside the box in the name of conservation.

The idea of retired civil engineer and Winter Springs resident Dan Morrical, Project SavEarth was started this year to get young minds thinking of how they can save the planet from excessive pollution and diminishing resources.

Four schools are part of the inaugural program, including Keeth Elementary, Rainbow Elementary, Lawton Elementary and St. Mary Magdalen Catholic School. Morrical said he handpicked the schools based on the teachers he had worked with at Project Create, a local engineering program for fifth-graders. Project Create was started by Morrical in 1988 when he was the president of the Central Florida Chapter of the Florida Engineering Society. Twenty-five years later, Project Create is still going strong, he said, and includes more than 400 elementary schools. It was after Project Create that Project SavEarth was modeled and will hopefully catch on in the same way, Morrical said.

This year, approximately 70 students from the four schools will be participating in Project SavEarth, which will conclude with an expo at the University of Central Florida on April 5. The expo will take place in the atrium of the Engineering II building from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Here, students will present months worth of research, discussions and ideas about preserving the planet. Students were given a list of prompts to begin researching and were instructed to adapt their ideas around those challenges. “Challenge Choices” included a variety of project options from looking at household chemical products to monitoring carbon footprints and researching green roofs.

“They’re going to be faced with the environmental problems that we’re leaving them, and they first of all need to be aware that these problems are there. This gives them a chance to start thinking about possible solutions,” Morrical said. “Their minds are so fresh and they come up with such creative ideas at this age, and who knows they may come up with somebody that nobody has ever thought of before.

“We hope that by the time they get to be adults, they’ll not only be aware of these environmental problems but also have some ideas on how to solve them.”

As the students come together on Saturday to present their ideas at UCF, Morrical stressed that Project SavEarth is not a competition, but rather a breeding ground for future ideas. Children will all receive an award, but for their specific contributions to projects, such as awards for leadership or innovation.

In the end, the goal is to get them thinking forward and feeling enthusiastic about issues they will likely face as they become the up and coming generation of thinkers and problem solvers.

“We’re planting the seeds right now,” Craig said. “… making them aware of the things they can do to impact the environment either positively or negatively, and, hopefully, they’ll learn from this and do it in a positive way.”

To read the original article from Seminole Chronicle, click here.