BLS YouthCAN Archive
Water Bottle Filling Station Student Project ProposalProject SummaryThe Boston Latin School student body needs to be further encouraged to make environmentally friendly choices, as climate change becomes an ever more urgent issue. They need to reduce their usage of disposable water bottles, which are detrimental in myriad ways. Because sustainability has recently been made a goal by the administration and because BLS is a city, state, national, and global leader, greater enthusiasm for the green movement among the student body should be fostered. BLS Youth CAN wishes to purchase and install three Elkay brand EZH2O? System Cooler/Bottle Filling Stations, which, in addition to functioning as normal fountains, possess a spot for hands-free water bottle filling and keep track of how many disposable water bottles were saved from consumption through refilling bottles. The installation of these fountains would coincide with a reusable water bottle giveaway for the BLS student body. Youth CAN will document and publicize all phases of the project to recognize the student body’s accomplishments and provide a guide for other schools. Our goals are 1. To reduce how frequently people use disposable water bottles and increase how frequently they use reusable water bottles and 2. To generate enthusiasm among the student body for school-wide sustainability. We are requesting $2500 to cover most of the costs for the three bottle filling stations and their installation. We will conduct parallel surveys before and after our project to measure students’ usage of disposable and reusable water bottles and of school fountains. After our project we will gather anecdotal evidence on the effect of the project on student enthusiasm for school-wide sustainability. Statement of NeedThe amount of petroleum it takes to produce and transport a disposable bottle of water would fill a water bottle ? of the way. It requires the equivalent of three bottles of water to create one disposable bottle of water. Only 1 in 5 disposable plastic bottles is recycled; the remainder end up in landfills and as pollutants in ecosystems worldwide, and plastic bottles take hundreds of years to biodegrade. What’s more, bottled water does not have to meet government quality standards for tap water. Despite all of these marks against them, disposable water bottles are wildly popular across the nation and at Boston Latin School. Those students who don’t bring a water bottle to school may simply drink from the fountain, therefore sending huge quantities of water down the drain every day. The Boston Latin School student body needs to be further encouraged to make choices to benefit the environment and needs to be educated on the finite nature of the earth’s resources, especially potable drinking water. They need to reduce their usage of disposable water bottles in order to reduce the school’s environmental impact. The whole student body must get excited about the green movement and not just see being green as another task but as something that can visibly benefit them. These changes must occur at Boston Latin School specifically as Dr. Mooney Teta has made sustainability a school-wide initiative and as Boston Latin School serves as a model for schools across the city, the nation, and the globe. Program Descriptionleft0 Elkay is a company that produces sinks, faucets, water coolers, drinking fountains, and, most notably, EZH20 bottle filling stations, which are hands-free, can fill an 18 ounce bottle in less than 6 seconds, and track how many disposable water bottles have been saved by refilling bottles. We, BLS Youth CAN, first became acquainted with Elkay when we were presenting at the Massachusetts Sustainable Communities Conference, and Elkay was there as a vendor. We spoke with them and invited them to our 2012 annual Climate Change Summit at MIT; they came. Our relationship grew when they came to our Green Apple Day of Service in September, and we later had two meetings with representatives from the company. We decided that we wanted to get three water bottle filling stations for Boston Latin School, and we researched Elkay’s competitor Globaltap before choosing Elkay, whose models were more appealing and less expensive. We conducted blind taste tests of bottled water and tap water, and 50% thought tap water was the bottled water. During a meeting with Elkay, Elkay worked with a team of our students to choose locations for the new bottle filling stations. We secured Headmaster Mooney Teta’s permission for the filling stations, and we discussed the desire to install the new stations with Phoebe Beierle, the Sustainability Coordinator for Boston Public Schools (BPS), whose office is located in the BPS Facilities Department. We just sent the specifications for the filling stations to Dennis Sheridan, also from BPS Facilities, who came to BLS for a site visit. We conducted a survey of 140 students who are bottled water-drinkers from grades 9 through 12 (full report in appendix) and found that only 63% of bottled water-drinkers are willing to use the current school water fountains but that 94% would be willing to use the bottle filling stations. We are continuing the process of getting permission from the Facilities Department; a crucial part of this process is communicating to them that they will not have to pay anything. We will soon conduct a survey of the student body on their use of and satisfaction with the current water fountains. BLS recently received, separate from our efforts, a donation of a filling station from Globaltap. It is a different kind of unit from those we wish to install, and its installation is not part of our agenda. We will purchase two filling stations from Elkay, and they will give us a third one for free. Concomitant with our purchasing the stations we will begin our water bottle giveaway (a separate Youth CAN project), in which students caught doing random acts of green will be given reusable water bottles by the administration, to increase use of the filling stations and to generate excitement among the student body. During the giveaway period, the stations will be installed. We will continue to educate the student body about water as a resource, one of Youth CAN’s focuses for the year. We will conduct a survey towards the end of the year that corresponds to the first survey and analyze the results. We will publicize successful results with the school community to recognize the achievements of the student body. We will publish an outline of our entire project for other schools to use as a guide. Not only do the bottle filling stations serve as an excellent tool for education for sustainability, but they also, in conjunction with the bottle giveaway, can create positive energy around sustainability as a school goal. The filling stations have already seen great success on many college campuses, and we are seeking to bring them into high school arena. High schools in wealthier districts, such as Manchester-Essex, Acton-Boxborough, and Hingham, have already completed environmental projects that appealed to and excited their student bodies, and they did not have to fundraise, because they received funding from their administrations and their communities. We want to similarly engage students at BLS, which is why we are working so hard to gather funds and to get bargains anywhere we can. Goals1. Reduce how frequently people use disposable water bottles and increase how frequently they use reusable water bottles2. Generate enthusiasm among the student body for school-wide sustainabilityImplementation TimelineXOctoberNovemberDecemberJanuaryFebruaryAprilContact ElkayXInvite Elkay to display Elkay fountains atYouth CAN eventsXXDraft and conduct water fountain surveysXXXXElkay does BLS site visit of existing fountainsXGet permission from Headmaster, Custodians, BPS Facilities Dept., etc.XXXXElkay visits to help choose appropriate filling station model XGet filling station specifications from ElkayXPurchase StationsXXInstall stationsXXConduct water bottle giveawayXXXXXXConduct and analyze exit survey, publish project outline as guide for other schoolsXXXXBudget1. Elkay? EZH2O Cooler Kits (Model # LZSTL8WSLK) to Replace Old BLS Fountains (2 cooler kits x $1,206/cooler kit + 1 cooler kit free = $2,412)$2,4122. Installation of Cooler Kits(3 units to install x 2 hours/installation x $150/hour*=$900)$900Total$3,312*Installation figure from Dennis Sheridan, from the Boston Public Schools Facilities Department.EvaluationWe will administer a survey before and after the installation of the filling stations and the commencement of the bottle giveaway. This survey will collect data on how frequently the students use disposable water bottles, how frequently they use reusable water bottles, and how frequently they use the school water fountains. It will survey two randomly selected homerooms from each grade to provide a sample group representative of the school community. We will contact the company responsible for the water bottle vending machines at BLS to find out how many water bottles are bought monthly both before and after our initiative. “How many water bottles did you purchase from the BLS vending machines in the past month?” will also be a survey question, so that we can compare our data with that of the vending machine company and have a back-up plan if the company will not give us the data. Using the tickers on the filling stations, we will find out how often the bottle feature of the filling stations is used each month. Finally, we will interview people after the entire initiative has been put in place to gather anecdotal evidence on how our initiative has affected student sentiment towards school-wide sustainability. Appendix1. Elkay Brochure (Note the BLS corridor pictured in the upper left corner.) (Attached) 2. Filling Station Specifications (Attached)3. Filling Station Poll Report (Attached)4. See ................
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