Going Green teams win the top ten ranks in an environmental contest 

Going Green teams won top ten placements and funding at a contest on April 22. The funding will help the group implement projects at RCMS like installing new gardens, a water filler, and a small solar-powered wind turbine that will provide energy.

“It is a wonderful experience,” said Mr.  Kirk Treakle, co-sponsor of the Going Green Club.         

 At the Caring for Our Watersheds contest at George Mason University, they were judged other school teams. The contest was virtual this year. It is rare for all RCMS teams to make it into the top 10.

Each team competes to win up to $1,000. As a team, the Going Green club writes a proposal up to 10 pages long about any environment-related project they want to do at RCMS.

Each team had to present in front of judges. The club really loves to bounce ideas off of other teams, Mr. Treakle said.

RCMS’s Renewable Energy team made it into seventh place, the Plastic Reduction team made it in fifth place and the Pollinator Garden team made it into fourth place. The Pollinator Garden team got $700, the Plastic Reduction team got $600 and the Renewable Energy team got $400.

Out of the money the club wins, Going Green uses the money to create their own ideas.

The main idea from the club is to put their project into effect. Some activities they enjoy doing is recycling and planting trees.

“We did a lot of planning, but now we should do some actions,” said Mr. Treakle.

The groups of the Going Green club have innovative ideas of what they are going to do when they win the money, but all of the projects are meant to improve the environment.

“We are stuck on Earth so it’s better to help the environment,” said Mohor Khan, an eighth-grader at RCMS.

“We have to show that we can make a difference,” said Tanmayee Maddineni, a student at RCMS and first-year member of the club.     

Both of these members and the rest of the Going Green Club look forward to help make the environment a better place.

The Going Green club’s goal is to make people aware of the impact they have on the environment, find solutions, and educate people. Club members are taking direct action on the environment. 

 “We do a lot of implementing projects,” said Mr. Treakle.

Last year they created a rain garden between the basketball court and baseball field of RCMS. A rain garden is a garden that takes the water from roofs and the sky and lets it soak to the ground. A rain garden consists of grasses and flowering perennials. Going Green wrote the proposals for the rain garden in 2019 and the group is continuing to take care of this garden.

 “A lot of projects we do carry over to the next year,” Mr. Treakle said.

The Energy group looks forward to installing a combination of wind turbines and solar panels. The main point of the solar panels is that it will help our school which would provide pollution-free electricity. This pollution-free electricity will be able to charge people’s devices and run LED lights at night. 

The Plastic group looks forward to installing a water bottle filler near C-pod in RCMS. The leftover money will be used for reusable water bottles for students that can’t afford it, or for students that have plastic water bottles. 

But, they also want it to be for everyone who can’t afford the reusable water bottles. The plastic group’s first project was to collect plastic water bottles from the cafeteria and make reusable water bottles affordable in the cafeteria. 

Going Green looks forward to starting more new projects.