More than 25 students gathered at the DuPage Children’s Museum on Thursday for BLAST pitch night, offering ideas to make a difference in the environment.
“BLAST is building leadership around sustainable transformation,” said Cathy Clarkin, Executive Director of Accelerate Climate Solutions. “It’s a program that we have for both high school and college students to give them real world experience and create solutions to environmental problems.”
Accelerate Climate Solutions sponsors BLAST, helping guide the students in their projects and partnering them up with mentors.
“They work on their project, they write a written proposal, and then tonight they come together and do a pitch in front of judges, and then they can win up to $1,000, to fund their project or to put towards their college education,” said Clarkin.
Students presented either group or individual projects with topics ranging from sustainable AI practices to generating electricity through bacteria.
“We also had another project where they have a device to control your heating and cooling system to make it work really efficiently,” said Clarkin. “A wide range of projects, solving important problems.”
First place winners came from IPSD 204
The winners in the group category came from Metea Valley High School, who offered a solution to food waste.
“Our project is Best For Last. So basically the entire idea of Best For Last goes around taking excess food from restaurants and distributing that to either the homeless shelters or paying customers,” said Sarayu Maddala, a junior at Metea Valley High School.
The group’s pitch was to host an event in July where area restaurants would bring excess food to a location near a homeless shelter. This could serve as a starting point for gathering restaurants for their app, which, once launched, would provide a distribution channel for the food.
“Food waste is a really big problem in the U.S. Over one-third of food at restaurants is wasted. That’s over 119 billion tons of food waste every year,” said Metea Valley High School junior Suki Elanjchezhiyan.
In the individual category, the top prize went to Neuqua Valley High School student Bavya Chowdavarapu. Her project, Martian Madness, is a board game for middle schoolers. Players balance resources like water, oil, and trees to learn about sustainability.
Pitch night is just the beginning for many of the student projects, and spurs a sustainability spirit organizers hope will continue for years to come.
“We want to continue to support these students through mentorship, through material support. We also have a lot of them come and work with us in the summer as interns, and work on projects that make our community more sustainable and stronger,” said Clarkin.
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