Tag: southwest middle school

BMAK – Final EACAP Post

ktf5124Southwest Middle School

Team Introduction:

Members (Left to Right)

Matthew D’Haiti –  2nd Year, Accounting Major

Kayla Fenwick – 2nd Year, Business Major

Aviana Armstead-Collado – 3rd year, Psychology Major

Bryan Martinez – 1st Year, Undecided Major

Service

Organization: SouthWest Middle School 

We decided to partner with SouthWest Middle school to clean up, re-beautify, and revive their outdoor garden area. During our service we helped weed their garden boxes, clean up the previous projects that have been overlooked over the seasons, and paint new storage containers to make space more lively. We also decided to add bird feeders to this space to welcome a species into this small community. 


Click the link to watch our Service video: Service Video Slides.pptx

Research 

What was our topic? 

Overgrazing, Land Degradation & Habitat Fragmentation 

Why did we choose it? 

We choose to research these topics based on how much they impacted and influenced the environmental issues it poses to our ecosystems. These three topics in particular all impact ecosystem’s ability to sustain and thrive in major ways that support the organisms living in that distinct space.

 Click the link to watch our Narrated Presentation: Research Presenation.pptx

Reflection 

This project has given us the opportunity to learn more about the issues that are harming our environment, how we ourselves play a role as society in contributing to it, and what we can do moving forward to stop, prevent & help flourish our environment. With being able to give back to surrounding communities like SouthWest Middle School it has opened our eyes to how important it is to create spaces for younger people to learn how to nurture their environment. With this webpage post we hope to send a message that’s informative and motivating to not only youth but to all individuals to get involved with protecting our environment.   

Enjoy These Pictures from Earth Day!

Green Tree Peas Add a Splash of Color to Southwest Middle School

Alana BanguraFall 2022 Project Teams

Hello, We are the Green Tree Peas and we currently consist of three members. 

These members are Alana, Kimberly, and Gaetcha.

Alana Bangura

  • Hello, I am Alana currently completing my senior year at PSU Berks campus. Some quick and fun facts about me are that I enjoy music in my free time, I have my own event decor business, and I was on two different step teams at two different times in my life. 

Kimberly

  • Hi! My name is Kimberly Nicholas. I am a 3rd year student here at Penn State Berks. A couple fun facts about me are that I love horror movies, listening to music, and playing video games. My computer – my pc, is my LOVE and my LIFE I even built it myself. One of the things I achieved and own that I’m proud of.

Gaetcha

  • Hi, My name is Gaetcha Denis. I am a 2nd year student at Penn State Berks. Here’s some fun facts about me. I love to edit videos in my free time, paint and listen to music. I am a big fan of fantasy novels and anything that’s non fiction as well. I’m proud to have interned in a hospital during my last year of High School and getting to work in customer service after graduating truly changed my outlook on customer care.

 

Our research issue

Our research topic centered around Food waste and its contribution to greenhouse gasses on a National level and we decided that the best sustainable development goal to focus on with our research would be goal 13, Climate Action. During our research we gathered much information on the ways that food waste has contributed to the substantial amount of greenhouse gases being released into the environment. We also have come up with many solutions in which we could work toward eradicating or at least lowering some of these contributing factors.

EACAP Research Powerpoint

Our Service Plan

For our service component as a team we collaborated with Southwest Middle School in order to create colorful topic related tiles that would be given back to the school and placed in different rooms for the students to be able to see. Our ideas for the designs came from what we believed would be most suitable in a school environment but also covered different components of our research. We focused on food, energy, and natural resources because we believed these topics would symbolize or closely link to the research we were able to collect. 

Our Tiles

 

Final Thoughts/ Reflection

Summary: Overall, despite a couple obstacles and difficulties, we really enjoyed being a part of this project. Through collaboration with not only our PSU (Penn State University) counterparts but also with the MSU (Moscow University) students we learned how to work together with other people who share similar goals. We also appreciate how this project offered us a lens to look at environmentalism. This panel project was very important to us because the three of us love art, and it gives us an opportunity to go out into the world, starting with a middle school in our own community. This project assisted us in being able to make small changes happen and educate young people through art about the beauty of the environment and how to maintain it all while trying to make a difference.

To the Youth: Take the time to get creative and join in helping your community! There are plenty of things you could do that may be of interest to you! Take our team for example, we all love art and this was a great way for us to dig into our own passions while playing a crucial role in giving back. 

The Happy Little Trees had fun with Southwest Middle School!

Arial CharlesFall 2022 Project Teams

The Happy Little Trees

Hello, we are the Happy Little Trees! Our group is composed of four first-year students named Fay, Arial, Maddie, and Molly. We all enjoy shopping, hanging out with friends, and painting! Fay is doing a double major in Risk Management and Entrepreneurship. She loves to play volleyball, cook, and play with her dog. Maddie is majoring in Business marketing. She enjoys spending time with her family, boating and traveling. Arial is majoring in business marketing. She loves cats and being creative. Molly is undecided. She enjoys taking naps and painting and loves dogs.

 

Research

While figuring out our research topic, we aimed for a topic that is related to both teams’ service projects. After hearing the MSU students were focusing on composting, we decided to research the issue of food waste today in the United States and Russia. We worked with students from MSU to compare and contrast the food waste in the US and the food waste in Russia. We went further to investigate our own cafeteria right here at Penn State Berks, and conducted an interview with Head Chef, Joseph Ertel. After many zoom meetings with the MSU students and continuing our research, we created a narrated presentation summing up all of our findings and comparisons. 

Food Waste Research Presentation Link

Service

For our service project, we decided to paint ceiling tiles for the Southwest Middle School right in Reading. We worked with Shana Holler, head of their science department to plan on painting the tiles for the science hallways. We focused our painting on the environment and sustainability. We painted two tiles each and created paintings that would showcase the importance of our planet and conserve its unique beauty. It was very fun to create art while also educating such a young group of students at the middle school. We created a video showing our progress and experience with this portion of our project.

Service Project Video (Ceiling Tiles)

Outcome

As a whole, we all worked well together and enjoyed both portions of this project. Although finding the right times to meet with MSU students was difficult, we still enjoyed getting to speak with them and collaborate on this project. It was great to grasp a different perspective of the world and be able to work with international students. We worked hard on our paintings as well and hope the students at Southwest Middle School enjoy them and make an impact on their views of their environment. It was a great experience and we were very glad that through this experience we were able to make new friends!