New Years Resolution

This week we decided to get people into thinking more green! We made some simple New Years Resolution posters to think about going green for the start of the new year. This idea is very similar to our past idea of DOT (Do One Thing) where you simply can make one change in your life at a time to become more environmentally aware. Hopefully, these will get people thinking about making changes.


Beat the heat,
Mimi

Composting

Our first way of raising awareness this year is going to be through advertising composting to the school. The Mill Valley Refuse Service now offers a compost service where all compostable materials can go into the green cans (previously only used for yard waste). This means that food waste, soiled paper, and yard waste are all "processed into premium, affordable compost which you can purchase directly from The Redwood Landfill and Recycle Center." Food scraps and yard waste make up about 23% of Marin's residential wast streem and this is a big step to help divert 80% of Marin County's waste away from landfills, so please support and start composting!

At Tam we decided we would create flyers about what is ok to compost, and also made presentations to all of the Freshman tutorial classes as well as some other classes about composting in general. Our presentation consisted information on what composting was, how it helps, and what you are able to compost. We presented to the school on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving so people could share their information with their family and compost during this holiday season. There was a suprising amount of people that already were composting so good job Tam!

Beat the heat,
Mimi

Getting There...

The club has been doing really good so far this year. We are in a huge planning stage- organizing recycling cans, composting ideas, t shirt ideas, presentations, and more. Hopefully within a few weeks we will set out and complete one of our projects! I have a feeling this year is going to be really great.

Beat the heat,
Mimi

First Meeting!

Come to Mr. Krause's room 349 in Upper Keyser building at lunch for the first Beat the Heat meeting!! It will be lots of fun and we will discuss our plans for this year and how we will be making a difference. Come and support!

Beat the heat,
Mimi Wyatt

Beat the Heat Starts Once Again...

This school year has began again and we are getting into gear. We found a new advisor this year for BTH, Mr. Krause. We are expecting even more productive things from ourselves this year. In addition to continuing elementary school presentations on global warming, we also want to get involved at our own school and community with smaller projects. One goal for us this year is to add recycling cans to the campus for lunch time. I am also trying to start a monthly involvment in some communal volunteer work. This month it is to rally people to attend the 26th Coastal Cleanup Day on September 25 (see last post). Club Day is September 22 from 9:50 to 12:55 (tutorial and lunch) so come show your support and sign up for Beat the Heat! Let's get some diversity in there this year.



Beat the heat,
Mimi Wyatt

California Coastal Cleanup Day Sept. 25!

On Saturday, September 25 it is coastal cleanup day!! From 9 am to noon you can go to a beach, creak, lake, or river and help with the 26th annual coastal cleanup day. Some ideas of places to volunteer for coastal cleanup day in Marin: Muir Beach, Ocean Beach, Stinson Beach, Rodeo Beach, Corte Madera Creek, Blackies Pasture, Belvedere, McNears Beach, Paradise Park, Pickleweed Park, Marin City Marsh, Gallinas Creek, and many others. If you are volunteering and are under the age of 18 you will need a waiver form signed by your guardians which you can get here. Come and help support. For more information visit the California Coastal Commision website. Hope to see you there!

Beat the heat,
Mimi Wyatt

We are back!!

It's been exactly 2 years since the last time I updated our Beat the Heat blog. Sorry guys. Although since then, we have gotten ourselves up and running once more! Ali and I are sophomores at Tamalpais High school and have created a Beat the Heat club at our school with the help of our lovely advisor Ms. Abrue. This year we were able to create a project to raise awareness about global warming.
We contacted elementary schools in our local district and set up dates in order to do presentations to the 5th grade classes. We were able to present to both classes at Strawberry Point Elementary, and one class at Edna Maguire and Tam Valley Elementary. What we created was a fun and basic PowerPoint that's goal was to express what global warming is, what it is doing, and how we can change what is happening. It was 30-40 minutes, but the students loved it and were asking questions and were in to discussing what we were talking about. After that we gave them the option of a game, or us spending the rest of the hour and a half talking more about global warming. Can you guess what they chose? That's right, the game.
The game we created was a trivia Jeopardy like game about the information we had just reviewed in our presentation. Our Jeopardy had the categories "Global Warming," "Random," "Consequences," and "What You Can Do To Help." There were point levels of 100, 200, 300, and 400, but instead of having a Daily Double card, we created a color wheel one. We got a wheel (similar to the Wheel of Fortune wheel) and made it that if you chose a color wheel question you had the option of spinning the wheel. When you spin the wheel, depending on the color you land on, either your points will double, lose the points, or stay the same. The kids got super into it and actually learned a lot from what we presented to them. Once we finished everyone got a piece of chocolate for a job well done.
Our closing activity was something called DOT (Do One Thing). Find more out about DOT by going to ACE. We made circles for all the kids to write one thing they will do in their life to make a difference towards the issue of global warming. We also made DOT boards which they taped their DOT circles too, making a colorful expression of the changes our youth create.
The kids and teachers loved us and we are expecting to go back next year. I promise to update the blog with information on what we are doing.

Beat the heat,
Mimi Wyatt