Young people are leading the charge on climate change around the globe and in Guilford as well. Six students from Baldwin Middle School recently participated in the National Geographic GeoChallenge, a nationwide competition that asks students to come up with a project or solution to address critical environmental issues.

This year, the challenge asked students in grades 5 to 8 to learn about and create an action to address the issue of single-use plastic pollution in waterways. According to a press release, “This year’s theme connects to National Geographic’s multiyear effort Planet or Plastic?, which is raising awareness about the global plastic trash crisis”.

The Baldwin team includes 6th graders Alana Renz, Mairin Yantorno, Kerrine Marinis, Ike Schutz, and Keoni McFee and 5th grader Ben Schroers. The team, under the direction of Baldwin Middle School art teacher Joe Bernier, opted to build a sculpture out of single-use plastic items.

“We took single-use plastics and we built a sculpture with them to try to raise awareness to stop people from using single-use plastic,” said Yantorno. “Our solution is to stop the source of the problem.”

Students used plastic bottles, utensils, and other items to construct a shark sculpture that is currently displayed in Baldwin. Bernier said the town and schools have been involved in using art to raise awareness about plastics since 2011. Various marine animals have been sculpted out of single-use plastics and sent around the nation and globe to raise awareness.

Bernier said art has been a great avenue for environmental education over the past few years.

“There has been a background for this going back to 2012,” he said. “It’s something I am heavily interested in and here I am at school and I can get this into the curriculum and everyone wins and hopefully we move in the right direction.”

Regarding the challenge itself, Schutz said it was interesting to try to come up with a solution to single-use plastic pollution.

“Each team tries to come up with its own solution, so whether it is putting nets over storm drains to keep plastic out or awareness [efforts], all the teams come together after they have worked on their ideas and there are judges that judge each team so see which one could actually go forward and work and solve the problem,” he said. “They score you on that and on how well you present your topic...It’s pretty cool.”

The Baldwin team beat out 1,000 other teams in the region to be one of 16 teams at the northeast regional competition in Chicopee, Massachusetts, on March 29. The team didn’t proceed to the national competition level, but Yantorno said winning isn’t the main goal.

“There were lots of good ideas at the competition,” she said. “We didn’t place in the top three, but we don’t think that is going to stop us from spreading awareness to people.”

The team recently presented at a community-wide public information session regarding a ban on single-use plastic bags and held another presentation for the Baldwin school community. Schultz said he wants to see all of his fellow students take an interest in this issue.

“We wanted people to get interested in this and one of the poster boards [displayed at school] has sticky notes on it and we asked people to write down how they can help stop plastic pollution and people said anything from bringing your own spoons to not using plastic bags to getting your own reusable water bottles,” he said. “...A lot of people were talking about this in the halls and we heard other students say things like, ‘Oh that was a cool presentation, we should think about that.’”

In addition to the GeoChallenge shark sculpture, close to 50 mixed-media collages are on display in the school and community center highlighting the harmful impacts of single-use plastic pollution. As Renz said at the community center public information meeting, the facts are clear and the ask is simple.

“Now that you know the consequences of plastics that we use almost every single day, will you join us in helping save the planet?” she said. “We hope you will.”

Learn more at NatGeoEd.org/GeoChallenge and www.seaofnoplastic.org.