Think about all those water bottles consumers buy — and throw away — every year. Where will they end up? That is the question five students at The Villages Charter Middle School want their peers to ponder. In order to get the message out, eighth-grade students India Carter, Tara Rangsiyawaranon, Lori Saporito, Megan Souter and Audrey Yoder are participating in the Lexus Eco Challenge, a competition for middle and high school students across the nation.

The contest challenges students to come up with creative ideas to help the environment. “It’s really important because I always wanted to help the environment, but I couldn’t find a way to help,” Souter said. When the group tackled the “land” portion of the challenge, the five pupils, under the guidance of science teacher Pam Lang, realized how wasteful plastic water bottles are.  “So many are filling up the landfills,” Rangsiyawaranon said.

As part of the Eco Challenge, the pupils have been encouraging their peers to swap plastic water bottles for reusable water bottles. They even gave away reusable water bottles at a recent football game and are encouraging their classmates to sign a pledge to use reusable water bottles.

“I think (our project) is really going to open people’s eyes to what the plastic bottles are doing to our environment,” Souter said. Less disposable and more reusable water bottles have been appearing in the halls of the middle school, Yoder added.

“The more people (who help), the more help the environment is going to get,” she said. Besides the obvious environmental impact, Lang has seen her students mature under the pressure of the project. “They’ve grown up over the past four or five weeks since I’ve been doing this,” she said, mentioning that the students have learned to cooperate with one another and divide tasks equally.

The project deadline is Friday, and if the group wins, the students will receive a cash prize. Already, the students told Lang that if they win they plan to use their money to buy recycling equipment for the school. After all, the project is not about winning, as Rangsiyawaranon said. “We’re trying to make everyone aware,” she said.

Rachel Katz is a reporter with the Daily Sun. She can be contacted at 753-1119, ext. 9265, or rachel.katz@thevillagesmedia.com.

(Por Rachel Katz, Daily Sun, 24/10/2008)