A group classroom project transformed in to a recycling campaign that is receiving positive feedback from students.
Professor Jim Cooke assigned the Environmental and Technological Science class a group project that required students to find an issue in the environment, create a proposal to decrease the issue and put it in to action.
Christina Solomon, freshman history pre-law major from Chicago, Kelsey Maple, freshman English major from Kemah, Victoria Cortez, junior accounting major from San Antonio and Fabiola Vargas, freshman psychology major from Carthage, Mo., picked the topic of recycling on campus.
Maple said she helped write the majority of the petition and that it had to address several problems in a short summary.
“The petition had to be able to support several aspects of recycling in a brief description,” Maple said. “I wanted to stress the idea of as Christians it’s our responsibility to keep order, lead by example and preserve the environment the best way possible.”
Solomon said she handled a majority of the meetings and phone calls to spread the word of the petition and gain student and staff support.
“Getting the support from groups such as the ACU Students’ Association was a big accomplishment of ours,” Solomon said. “It’s definitely a small step, but it will definitely lead to bigger things in the future.”
The group recently took a tour of the Abilene recycling center to better understand the process of recycling at a more complex level. Cortez said that the information they learned aided the construction of the petition.
“The trip to the recycling center really made our group understand the process of recycling a lot better,” Cortez said. “We realized, as a group, that it would be an important task to take on but definitely worth informing and involving the students and staff on campus.”
The recycling petition will be available to sign at a date that has not yet been announced. Solomon and Maple said they are trying to introduce the petition on Earth Day in the Campus Center.
“People seldom realize how important recycling is to the earth,” Maple said. “We only have one earth and it is our responsibility to sustain it the best we can.”
