Impact Team Projects 2018-2019
The Christian School at Castle Hills
The Christian School at Castle Hills focused on world wide water conservation for their project. They decided to partner with thewaterproject.org to raise funds for water supply improvements (well digging or infrastructure maintenance) for a community in Africa, where water conservation is critical. Our mentors, K Friese and Associates also helped us to build a sand filter to demonstrate a way to purify water in an area where clean water is limited.
Churchill High School
Churchill High School created a project that involved raising community awareness about the importance of xeriscaping. Students worked to create a faux app which had useful tips and information about water conservation. The app also includes a timer that calculates water usage for various everyday activities. The attached QR code will showcase that information.
Wagner High School
H2O No: We developed a plan to build a rainwater harvesting system that can be used on campus. The water would be collected from a roof overhang, and be rerouted to a nearby pond and future vegetable garden spaces. The next steps involve raising funds and building the system.
Wagner High School
The Wagner Impact Team worked on two projects. One on getting water fountains installed into the school that would double as water bottle refilling stations, to help in reducing plastic waste. The second was to extend Earth day to Earth week at their school. Throughout the week they facilitated different activities or events to help spread water conservation awareness. Activities included games during lunch, word searches, dress days and a water filter workshop.
Edison High School
Edison High School facilitated 12 projects in 2018. Topics included:
- Promoting water conservation awareness on campus by posters; students administered a survey to student body on which posters where most effective in having them consider water conservation
- Promoting water conservation awareness though social media influence on Facebook
- Dual Flush toilets versus traditional toilets study (calculated and reporting on efficiency of each)
- Family influence on water conservation study – tips were given to family members at home and water bills were compared before and after the tips
- Rain harvesting system for Edison – identify potential building materials and costs for a rain harvesting system at school; applied for a grant
- Rain harvesting study on cost benefits with homemade rain harvesting systems; helped applied for rain harvesting grant with previous group
- Homemade water filtration system- creating a filtration system from materials at home
- Homemade water filtration system using charcoal
- Water bill audits
- Water bill audits
- Elequa team – added vibrations from cell phones to enhance the coagulation system
- Promoting native plant gardens to reduce water usage; created brochures and passed them out to the public at a popular local shopping center
Madison High School
The James Madison High School IMPACT Project for 2018-19 was a campus garden and rainwater collection from our portable buildings. The students researched garden designs, potential plant species and found a suitable location near our portables for the garden beds. The students also looked at possible ways to fund the construction of both the gardens and rainwater collection and came up with a cost for each. They also contacted our Floral Design and Culinary Arts teachers about their classes and students using the production of vegetables, herbs and flowers from the gardens. We decided that we wanted the area to be accessible and utilized by as many students as possible, so including these classes along with all the Environmental Science classes would include a large number of students on the Madison campus.
Providence High School
The 2019 Providence Impact team tested the effectiveness of natural bio-filter systems where plants removed nitrate from water. They were also the first recipients of the new Impact Grant, funds that will be used to enhance and move their project forward.
Communications Arts High School
The Communications Arts High School Impact Team created four PSA’s discussing the themes of everyday water consumption habits, legislative change regarding water conservation, “water footprint,” and water conservation methods. Because of the unique opportunities provided by our school, giving us skills in video production and editing as well as equipment, we thought that creating PSA’s would allow us to communicate our ideas in compelling and humorous ways.
STEM Early College High School
The STEM Early College High School team made collection boxes where students could throw away their plastic water bottles instead of throwing them in the trash. The team counted how many bottles were collected each week. They then compared how much water it takes to make each plastic bottle, and how much it costs to buy bottled water. The objective was to make students aware of how much water is being wasted to make “throwaway” bottles, and to show them how to save money using reusable water bottles.
John Jay High School
John Jay’s IMPACT Project is a water reclamation project that acts as an extension to the school’s existing gutter system. It utilizes underground storage tanks, boiler systems, potential nanotechnologies, and water filtration systems. There are two ways that the water can be conserved: either through the use of the irrigation systems for the school fields or purification for potable use throughout the school.
Somerset High School
Somerset Impact team is doing a water audit of the district so they can try to implement water conservation throughout the district. One way to save water was to have water bottle refill stations installed where the drinking fountains are currently. The students wanted to do fundraisers in order to get this accomplished.
Left to right Bryan Ledesma, America Fernandez, Alexis Jacoby, Katrina Aguilar, Savannah Rios, Marissa Santana kneeling.
Harmony Science Academy
Drip Irrigation Garden Team: In February 2018 we lost a former teacher to a tragedy. As a memorial to her we built a garden in her memory. Sadly, the garden died during the summer because it did not get enough water. Therefore, we decided to build a new garden with a drip irrigation system. This can help maintain a healthy garden while conserving the amount of water needed if we used a regular sprinkler system.
Elequa Team: We started the year trying to get the coagulator to work with a hydrogen fuel cell. Ironically, the fuel cell would only work properly if the water in it was clean, preferably distilled water. Since we were already using solar panels as a means of charging the hydrogen fuel cells we decided to continue trying to get it to work with the solar panels alone.