1. Don’t Waste,Waste! Team Members: Hana Mengistu, Liya Seleshi, Reagan Isom, Daniella Thomas, Michelle Torres, Sumayya Shirwa, Vincent Merino, Mariam Mhareb, Mathew Sam School Name: Lotus School for Excellence School city and state: Aurora, Colorado Team Name: Unique Geeks Teacher Advisor: Ms. Leigh Principal Name: Mr. Idil Website: www.uniquegeekcompost.weebly.com

2. Environmental The topic we have chosen is Land and Water. We chose this because at Lotus School for Excellence, there is a lot of waste in our lunch room because of all of the food being thrown away. As a result, there will be more landfills and trash thrown away that could be reused. This is bad for the environment, and given the fact that the earth gives us so much, it’s time that we give back!

3. There’s Too Much To Lose Composting will benefit the environment by deducting greenhouse gases. It will impact our environment by reusing waste that’ll usually end up in a landfill. We are going to reuse the waste by turning it into compost and then we will build a school garden, which helps our environment in many ways.

4. Our Action Plan The first thing we will do is make a compost program In the spring, when our school has enough compost, we will plan a garden that has fresh vegetables we can eat. At first, we had decided to compost with just middle and high school students, but realized that we could do more, and carried this plan out to the elementary students as well as the teachers! We hope to encourage composting here at Lotus School for Excellence, and spread it to other in the Aurora school district. We think that spreading the word about compost will help us raise awareness on how wasting food could make land and many other places contaminated. We also started a website and you can continue to follow us at (hyperlink): http://uniquegeekcompostlse.weebly.com/ http://uniquegeekcompostlse.weebly.com/

5. Taking Action We first came up a plan by choosing one of the two topics (land and water), and then came up with a way to positively affect our school. Slowly, our plan evolved into something bigger than we had first expected. The very first thing was spread the word of what compost is, and that we’re starting it in our school.

6. Taking Action To motivate people, we held competitions between lunch hours, set up an informational website, made and hung up lots of posters, and set up a station at our school’s academic festival for STEAM. We also presented our idea to the PTO of Lotus, and we found out about grants that we could obtain as well as a few volunteers subjected to donating supplies our use. We also decorated our compost bin to make sure that people knew what it was.

7. Evaluation & Results On the first day, we weighed 5 lbs of compost. Towards the end of the second week, we had a total of 25 lb, a day of compost at our school for a total of 125lb less trash going the landfill! The challenging part of this process has been motivating our peers to place the right items into the compost bin. Another challenge was getting the necessary funds and supplies that were needed for our project. the results we had gathered from the compost was DaysLunch 1Lunch 2 62 lb 7 3 lb 82 lb5 lb 92 lb5 lb DaysLunch 1Lunch 2 11.5 lb 22 lb1.5 lb 32 lb 42.5 lb 52 lb

8. Evaluation and Results We have a plan to start with our school and then later expand these ideas to other schools around our greater community, but first we had to raise awareness at our school. To do so, we presented at an assembly, made and hung many posters, and had a station at our school’s academic fair to promote the idea. When our program is fully up and running we will attend Aurora Public School meetings to advocate for spreading the program to other Aurora schools. The Compost Program is growing every week! We are shifting our focus now to fund raising and constructing our garden.

9. Our Plan for the Winnings For Our School, we will invest in constructing an organic garden on campus. We will invest in making sure that our garden is here for many more years. It could also allow us to save money because it will help the school avoid buying food. Additionally, it will be a healthy alternative to the food we buy that is filled with preservatives. The fresh produce we grow will go into lunches and will make a healthier lunch for anyone eating at our school.

10. Project Gallery We created a compost bin to put in the lunchroom

11. Project Gallery We brought in compost experts and educated ourselves.

12. Project Gallery

13. When we had an assembly at our school, we created a powerful powerpoint and shared our ideas that would benefit us for the future.

14. Project Gallery We created an outdoor compost bin with pallets.