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Updated: May 6, 2024 @ 6:16 am
Shreyes Chekuru, a senior at the Academies of Loudoun and Rock Ridge High School, participated in the annual Student Environmental Action Showcase on April 24 at Academies of Loudoun outside Leesburg.
Dhairya Jindal, a first grader at Cardinal Ridge Elementary School, won first place in the elementary school category for his project, “Crayon Stars.”
Independence High School students Hannah Corbitt and Sharanya Maddukuri explain their project, “Clean Water/Brighter Future,” on April 24.
Students from Cardinal Ridge Elementary School in South Riding won a second place and $350 prize for their project, “How to Recycle at Your School.” The project was one of 67 displayed at the annual Loudoun Student Environmental Action Showcase at the Academies of Loudoun outside Leesburg on April 24.
Academies of Loudoun students Adelyn Boutwell and Alisia Gomolka made a prototype pouch from recycled plastic bags for electronic devices.
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Students from Cardinal Ridge Elementary School in South Riding won a second place and $350 prize for their project, “How to Recycle at Your School.” The project was one of 67 displayed at the annual Loudoun Student Environmental Action Showcase at the Academies of Loudoun outside Leesburg on April 24.
Besides reducing waste, students from Cardinal Ridge Elementary School in South Riding sought to change fellow students’ behavior through their project, “How to Recycle at Your School.”
The project was one of 67 displayed on April 24 at the Academies of Loudoun, a public magnet school outside Leesburg, at the annual Loudoun Student Environmental Showcase, which drew more than 200 people and awarded $3,450 in prize money. Clark Seipt, Loudoun County Public Schools’ director of sustainability and one of the showcase judges, praised their efforts.
“Not only did you have these problems, you brainstormed solutions, you educated people about those problems and you were able to actually change behaviors at your school,” she told seven fifth graders who worked on the class project before high-fiving them. “That is really hard to do. So, congratulations. This is an awesome project.”
The event was organized by the Loudoun Environmental Education Alliance and was open to public, private and homeschooled students in Loudoun as well as members of 4-H Clubs and Scout troops. Participation was up significantly this year — the showcase featured 19 projects in 2023 — and students began working on their projects in the fall, according to Kristine Abbe-Nguyen, the event’s organizer and the LEEA historian and programming chair. The event began in 2019, but was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Dhairya Jindal, a first grader at Cardinal Ridge Elementary School, won first place in the elementary school category for his project, “Crayon Stars.”
The Cardinal Ridge students’ project involved recycling cardboard, paper and plastic water bottles. The students developed a collection schedule, obtained recycling bins, evaluated collection efforts, and educated fellow students about the importance of reducing landfill waste. The project, which began with the previous class of fifth graders, was partially inspired by full trash bins and an empty recycling dumpster at the school, according to Maghati Devanand, one of the students. She said the dumpster is now full because to the project, which includes a manual on how other schools can establish recycling projects.
“We’re trying to reduce, reuse, and recycle, but our end goal is to have recycling in other schools too,” said Class President Troy Prokopio. “To spread it across Loudoun County, and eventually, the whole entire world.”
“It has made a huge impact on kids because they’re excited to get good grades and certificates,” said another student, Ibraheem Alhemyari.
Two Independence High School students — Heather Corbitt, a junior, and Sharanya Maddukuri, a senior — also focused on recycling for their project, which they call “Clean Water/Brighter Future.” They based their project on the United Nations’ efforts to publicize the need for clean drinking water.
Independence High School students Hannah Corbitt and Sharanya Maddukuri explain their project, “Clean Water/Brighter Future,” on April 24.
They retrieved discarded plastic water bottles and other trash at Hal and Berni Hanson Regional Park in Brambleton.
“We tried to combine advocacy and actual action in our community,” Maddukuri said. “We want a brighter future and cleaner water.”
The ailing health of oceans was on the mind of Shreyes Chekuru, a senior at Rock Ridge High School and the Academies of Loudoun. His “Bleach-Net Detection” project is designed to detect coral reef bleaching.
The process occurs when warmer waters caused by climate change remove algae from corals, which marine animals depend on for survival. More than 75% of Earth’s tropical reefs experienced bleaching-level heat stress between 2014 and 2017 — at nearly 30% of reefs, it reached mortality level — according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
Chekuru said that about 25% of marine species depend on coral reefs and millions of people rely on healthy oceans for fishing and tourism.
Using a 3D printer, Chekuru developed a prototype for an autonomous mini-submarine to detect coral bleaching.
Shreyes Chekuru, a senior at the Academies of Loudoun and Rock Ridge High School, participated in the annual Student Environmental Action Showcase on April 24 at Academies of Loudoun outside Leesburg.
“My goal was to produce a cheap, easy to reproduce, highly accurate, and highly specific early detection model that scientists can use to assess what kind of conservation models that they need to save the reefs,” he said. “The submarine can do down into these depths, take a picture of the coral, run it through a machine on site and then determine whether the coral is healthy, bleached, or dead, and give it a severity risk on a scale of zero to 100.”
Academies of Loudoun students Adelyn Boutwell and Alisia Gomolka made a prototype pouch from recycled plastic bags for electronic devices.
The Loudoun Student Environmental Action Showcase winners were announced by the Loudoun Environmental Education Alliance on April 30.
Grades K-5
— 1st place ($500): Dhairya Jindal of Cardinal Ridge Elementary School for “Crayon Stars”
— 2nd place ($350): Jennifer Pitzen’s fifth-grade class at Cardinal Ridge for “How to Recycle at Your School”
— 3rd place ($150): Aleksandr Struts, a homeschooler, for “Remote Control Trash-Eating Boat”
Grades 6-8
— 1st ($500): Kelly Anderson’s Garden Club at Seneca Ridge Middle School for “Table to Garden Composting”
— 2nd ($350): Pranamya Jindal of Mercer Middle School for “EcoSlice: A Pizza Box Recycling Initiative”
— 3rd ($150): Gabriel Vlachopoulos of Smart’s Mill Middle School for “Plastics in the Ocean”
Grades 9-12
— 1st ($500): Akhilesh Tammana and Leila Ware of the Academies of Loudoun for “Investigating the Use of Pyrolyzed Sewage Sludge and Mushrooms as an Effective Additive to Develop Feasible Sustainable Concretes”
— 2nd ($350): Arjun Rajesh of OzonePlus and Broad Run High School for “OzonePlus”
— 3rd ($150): Tie between Olivia Cohn of Tuscarora High School for “Superworm Composting” and Katarina Walordy, Maadhavan Iyer and Mireille Strittmatter of the Academies of Loudoun for “MicroMission”
Innovation in Action Award (Grades K-12)
— ($300): Madeline Binkley of Independence High School for “The Weight of Our Advance”
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