Christy's Reflection:
For our Earth Day project, we researched and looked into the amount of paper that has been wasted annually throughout Wake County. This is important because many people do not realize the impact that is being made on our environment. We use about 3.1 million sheets of paper each year. This means over 210 trees are being killed per year just for middle school standardized testing and in Wake County alone. With all the counties in North Carolina, that really adds up. Furthermore, each and every paper given in testing has to be burned according to the state, even sheets which have not even been used. To offer the best solution for this problem, my friends and I went around Salem Middle School and asked over 300 students which alternative solution they would prefer to help save and reduce the amount of paper waste. Then I helped create a website to display all our research so people around the world can hear about the problem.
Our project will help schools and others realize the unnecessary waste that is appearing through standardized testing. It will save hundreds of trees annually, providing a healthier environment for us all. It also provides reasonably solutions to fix or lessen the problem at hand. If this project had not been done, people would be in the dark about this issue and would not have been motivated to make a change.
Before this project, I did not care about the waste of paper at all. I used to draw and scribble on my leftover scrap paper and not even care what happened to it afterwards. I did not realize that each student uses 70- 90 pieces of paper each, and that each piece of paper had to be burned. During the project, I felt bad that I had not even acknowledged the problem that we are killing so many trees. I knew that there were many ways that we could solve the issue. Now that we are done with the project, I feel good that we have gotten a chance to get our opinion about the matter out in public while offer valuable and simple solutions so that we can make a change in the world. In the future, I would like to do more projects like this to raise awareness and I also hope to see a change in how standardized testing in organized. This project was overall an amazing experience for me.
Our project will help schools and others realize the unnecessary waste that is appearing through standardized testing. It will save hundreds of trees annually, providing a healthier environment for us all. It also provides reasonably solutions to fix or lessen the problem at hand. If this project had not been done, people would be in the dark about this issue and would not have been motivated to make a change.
Before this project, I did not care about the waste of paper at all. I used to draw and scribble on my leftover scrap paper and not even care what happened to it afterwards. I did not realize that each student uses 70- 90 pieces of paper each, and that each piece of paper had to be burned. During the project, I felt bad that I had not even acknowledged the problem that we are killing so many trees. I knew that there were many ways that we could solve the issue. Now that we are done with the project, I feel good that we have gotten a chance to get our opinion about the matter out in public while offer valuable and simple solutions so that we can make a change in the world. In the future, I would like to do more projects like this to raise awareness and I also hope to see a change in how standardized testing in organized. This project was overall an amazing experience for me.