During the 2018-19 school year, teams of middle schoolers tackled the problem of plastic pollution in our waterways with the National Geographic GeoChallenge. First-place teams from sixteen regional competitions traveled to the 2019 Geo Championships in Washington, D.C. in May 2019. This blog series introduces you to each of those teams in their own words.* Registration for next year’s #NatGeoChallenge opens in August at NatGeoEd.org/GeoChallenge.

Meet team No SACS in the Ocean!

Team No SACS in the Ocean was concerned about the amount of single-use plastic being used during school lunches. The team worked with their school’s administration to replace plastic utensil packets with reusable, metal utensils. Based on their success, the team plans to spread their campaign to the ten other elementary schools in their district.

From: Orange Elementary School, Iowa

Team Motto: Sporks to Forks

A funny thing about your team: We each have a quirkiness to us but we mesh together in a synergy that matches no other!

A funny thing about your coach: She loves turtles as much as we do and has two in her classroom.

List one way you’ve changed your single-use plastic use: Our school no longer uses single-use sporks and straws!

A part of the world I’d like to explore is:

Sam: oceans

Adrian: Costa Rica

Claire: the United Kingdom

Sebastian: Hawaii

 Registration for the 2019-2020 National Geographic GeoChallenge opens in August.

*Team responses have been lightly edited for grammar.