Caring For Our Watersheds is a program that encourages students to develop and create solutions in their local watersheds. The program promotes watershed awareness inside and outside the classroom, offering support to students when turning their ideas into action in annual contests.

For the student entries submitted each year, judges in the environmental field score each entry and select 10 projects for the final competition, which was held on April 29 this year.

All participants were given implementation funding, up to $1000 per project, so students could have the opportunity to turn their ideas into reality, At the final event, projects were presented and finalists received cash awards as well as awards for their schools.

Out of the 100 proposals submitted this year to Caring For Our Watersheds, two were among the top ten – senior Alexandra Meckes‘s Battery Recycling along with juniors Bennett Heyn and Amanada Jensen‘s Cell Phone Recycling: Let’s Save Coltan!

Meckes placed third overall. Her project enabled residents to properly recycle their old batteries by setting up seven battery drop-off locations around the district. After collections, the batteries are shipped to a recycling company. Meckes hopes that recycling batteries will become as routine as recycling paper, plastic, and cans. She wants to show those in the community how small actions can make a big difference in the environment.

Meanwhile, Heyn and Jensen’s project provided a way for residents to recycle their old cell phones by partnering with the Cincinnati Zoo and implementing a recycling program here at the high school. Their hope was to raise awareness for the negative effects of mining for Coltan, a mineral used in cell phone batteries, on the environment.