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 the Plastic Police!

The Plastic Police team seeks to reduce plastic waste, which may enter waterways and kill marine life. The team successfully convinced their elementary school to switch from plastic utensils to metal utensils. Now, the team seeks to motivate other schools and the community to reduce single-use plastic consumption through participating in local community events and creating online challenges.

From: Forest Lane Community School, Wisconsin

Team Motto: Eliminate single-use plastics, one person at a time!

Favorite moment at regional competition:

…seeing other kids’ ideas to solve the plastic pollution problem, and talking other kids being interested in our idea.

… getting to walk around and see and talk to other teams about their project solutions.

… interacting with the judges.

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

… New Zealand

… Hong Kong

… Los Angeles

… Canada

… Japan

… Italy

When I think of National Geographic, I think of…

… hard-working researchers and explorers.

… a society that is trying to better the world.

… pictures.

… opportunity!

… a society of explorers

 

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

*Team responses have been lightly edited for grammar.