https://www.instagram.com/compostingcollectingcrew?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

Campus

The goals for our project was to minimize the waste of fresh produce on campus and educate our peers about the benefits of composting.

Advocacy, Community Building, Education

Yes, we accomplished the goals we set for this project. Our main goal was to minimize the waste of produce on campus by repurposing it, and we were able to collect over 10 pounds of unwanted produce and scraps! Another goal we had was to educate the border school community about the benefits of compost, and this was met by students wanting to make a change, so they stopped by to dispose of their vegetable and fruit scraps and even encouraged their friends to do the same.

Pounds of food composted

Throughout our project, we collected over 1o pounds of produce from students.

We began our project on December 3rd of 2024 and completed it on March 7th of this year. The planning took place in the first few months, and we physically began doing our project at the beginning of February.

An obstacle we faced during our project was that we didn't have many students participating in donating their vegetable and/or fruit scraps to us. However, we were able to overcome this challenge by creating an Instagram account and hanging flyers around campus to alert the broader school community about what we planned to do, which was to collect food scraps to minimize the waste of fresh produce.

Students were involved in this project by disposing of their leftover or unwanted vegetable and fruit scraps into our compost bin during lunch.

Yes, our project was funded. In order to get a compost machine, we reached out to our ECA coordinators to ensure that a portion of the academy budget could be allocated toward our project. The ECA academy stands for Environmental Careers Academy, where it specializes in preparing students for a possible career in the environmental field.

We started off by presenting a presentation to three underclassmen, where we taught them the importance of composting and our plans of minimizing on-campus food waste by collecting vegetable and fruit scraps. To further promote our project, we hung flyers around campus, alerting our peers to meet us in a certain room during lunch to drop off their scraps and unwanted produce. We also created an Instagram account to educate the broader campus community of the benefits of compost and to encourage students to participate in our project.

Group reflection

Celebrated

The biggest thing we learned from our project was team collaboration. Working together and with others to make the project a success enhanced our teamwork skills, especially in organizing and adopting a community-driven initiative.

Some advice we would give to others working on a similar project is to educate your community. Many people may not understand composting or its benefits. Hosting in-person presentations, creating flyers, or using social media like we did can help spread awareness and encourage participation. This was a key step in gaining participants, as this was the only way people were aware of our project.

Although our project has come to an end, our group will continue to encourage others to dispose of their unwanted produce and scraps in our bin. If we don't receive as many participants as before, we will put in our own vegetable and fruit scraps from school or off campus. We will continue to use our compost machine and use the compost for our on-campus garden, as we garden every Wednesday in the ECA acdemy.