Ferris Elementary / Richmond School District wins the $500 prize
Earth week school tours came to an end on April 23, 2010. Two tours a day for five days, does not really sound like much, I was exhausted! I have to say keeping 25 + kids and their supervisors interested and engaged in a recycling facility tour is a challenge. Some of the kids get it in an instant and ask outstanding, engaged and interesting questions. Others, well, you just have to keep working the stories and the angles to interest them and to get them excited about waste diversion and recycling.
Earth Day (week) Tours at Urban Impact
Four tours done and six to go (I have two a day all week). So far so good. I find when I am “touring” it sometimes takes me one tour to get into the groove again and engage with the kids fully.
Urban Impact is paying for all the classes to be bused into the facilities (Richmond M-W, New Westmisnter Th & Fr). This year we have also raised the stakes of the tours, we are offering a $500 prize for the class that provides us with the 5 ways in which they as a class can reduce waste and 5 ways in which they can personally reduce waste. In addition to the grand prize we give away prizes for the 3 best questions (each tour) and a cool non battery flashlight (curtesy of Science World) for the best science question asked. It certainly seems to motivate the questions.
I enjoy the tours, often the questions inspire some blog topics. In addition the energy and interest of the kids is envigorating and a challenge for me! Keeps me on my toes.
Here are a couple of the good questions:
- Does recycling reduce the power we consume?
- What does Urban Impact do reduce power consumption?
- What does Urban Impact do to achieve zero waste?
- Is it more important to reduce or recycle?
- Why did you start Urban Impact?
Fun questions to answer!
How Twitter helps me, the environmental or sustainable interested reader stay current
I know the 40 million + Twitter users are using tweets in 40 million + ways. I am sure everyone has a different goal or reason to use it, each valid. I embarked on the Twitter road about a year ago, with no clear objective in mind, I simply recognized that this growing tool in social media would likely keep me current and (hopefully) on the edge of what people are thinking and doing as it relates to sustainable topics and issues.
I use Twitter every day perhaps even a few times each day. Often the most interesting comments come from a random Tweeter who mentions a green issue just once. Some of the people or organizations I follow who are branding themselves as green, seem to be very repetitive in their messaging or quite frankly it is 20 or so core messages that rotate regularily. Twitter’s value is that it is a conversation not a rotating message.
Some days it seems you are having a Twitter conversation with yourself and no one else is listening, which could be the case. But even if no one is listening, my Twitter account has a clear and concise history of these thoughts. If I re read them it holds me accountable and reminds me of green commitments that I have made to myself, our clients and our staff.
2010 is Urban Impact’s 20th Birthday!
20 years, it is hard to believe!
Urban Impact began as an academic question … and someone morphed into a company. It is amazing to me, really. 20 years ago not much recycling was happening and recycling was considered to be quite radical. Thankfully today, the world has accepted it as a normal businesses or household practice! Saving our used resources and making something new … truly the way it should be.
In any event, we are planning our 20th Birthday Celebration in the summer. We are looking for ways to celebrate and the theme is “20″. So far we have a few suggestions, they include:
- Planting 20 trees (good sized ones)
- Sponsoring 20 Foster Children
- Purchasing 20 benches for public parks
Can you think of any others, if so we would love to hear your suggestions!
Green Thoughts Poll
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