NAHANT – The Johnson Elementary School has organized a climate change challenge within the framework of the science fair sponsored by the Nahant Education Foundation.
Students demonstrated their projects on potential solutions to tackling issues of food, shelter, and transportation related to climate change, along with their research results on the topic.
“This was the first year that we are doing this,” said principal Kevin Andrews.
Throughout the course of six weeks and 12 hours in total, according to Andrews, the students in grades three to six learned about the climate impact caused by a life activity, and received some answers to the question of “what are the solutions to climate change,” said Johnson STEM teacher Alyssa Klein, who helped in organizing the project.
Andrews said he first got an idea for this project when Nahant Education Foundation reached out to him and suggested running a science fair, and Andrews decided to “think of a theme for the kids to explore together.”
Next, he decided to break the climate change into different issues – car pollution that could be solved by making electric cars and creating electricity from solar power; housing, and how it impacts the environment, with its possible solution in the form of “earthship housing;” and the pollution caused by food transportation which can be addressed by producing more local food.
“They researched how it was important to grow their own food instead of transporting food from places like California,” said third grade teacher Erin Morton.
She said students initially tried their hand at growing microgreens using LED lighting.
After success with the microgreens, they tried snap peas, and after they grew them, they took them home too. The third attempt was with growing marigolds presented by the students at the fair.
The Johnson students drew a variety of conclusions from their climate experiments.
“The problem in transporting food from far places is that we see too much fuel and gasoline,” said Xavi Uzcategui, 9, in his project essay. “More fuel is used to go longer distances, which pollutes the air. The Arctic is melting, and animals are dying.”
The research findings of Troy Rounds, 8, included the fact that global warming “gets rid of all the polar bears and icebergs and many animals’ homes, like penguins.”
Joy Montano, 10, said that she thought it was “really cool you can save hundreds of dollars over the year and thousands over a lifetime.”
“We need to stop gas from taking over our clean air,” added Aurora Amancio.
While the third graders were engaged in growing with LEDs, the fifth graders were working on “earthships” that could potentially solve the problem of home heating.
“Earthships are a solution to the problem, because they heat up their home with solar or wind energy, using no harmful gasses,” said Eliana Uzcategui, 11.
Sixth graders engaged in building electric car Lego models, “just like a Tesla for kids,” as Andrews put it.
According to Sadie Bell, 11, electric cars run on solar power, and it is better for the environment.
“These cars are about pollution, and what we are trying to do is to reduce pollution,” said Bell.
Fourth graders, in addition to their plant research, could each work on their own project. The students quickly overcame Andrews’ skepticism. He said their experiment “came out good.”
Within the framework of working on their environmental project, the students will also visit Climate Action: Inspiring Change exhibition at Peabody Essex Museum, and they will also have a second opportunity to share their projects Saturday at the Art, Nature, Nahant event put on by the Nahant Arts Council.
Oksana Kotkina can be reached at [email protected].