Diana Jeang (2008-2009 Essay Contest participant)

Project Summary Continued:
Student volunteers then use this information to calculate the carbon emissions of each student, and the number of trees that would be needed to plant for sequestering this carbon output.   Students are then asked to contribute a dollar-for-tree equivalent which is donated to the Arbor Day Foundation, an organization that plants one tree in an American national forest for every dollar it receives in donations.  Students who sign up to participate in this program and who neutralize their carbon output will be entered into a raffle to win prizes.  Over the summer and during the school year, Green Trading works to educate others on the individual’s effect on the environment in everyday activities.  On the Green Trading website, people can learn more about carbon pollution, find tips on how to reduce their negative impact on the environment and calculate their carbon footprint.  www.greentradingnow.com | Click here to view a write-up about Diana's project!

I am also planning to invite a guest speaker to come to our school and have an assembly in the weeks before I launch the project and have people start signing up to participate.   This will help raise awareness in my school (Blair is huge).  I have spoken to teachers and students at my school who seem enthusiastic about the project. I will invite a guest speaker that is knowledgeable about carbon pollution and who can engage the students.  I am thinking about contacting the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, but I also got a recommendation from a friend for actor Ed Begley who spoke at the Delaware Great Green Expo via Skype instead of traveling there to reduce his carbon footprint. 

Two of my friends from school and I worked to design the website for my micro-grant project. The website’s address is www.greentradingnow.com.  The website provides educational information about carbon pollution and responsible stewardship of the environment on this site.  The website will serve as an important fundraising tool when I go to ask companies for donations.  I will be posting the names of all of the sponsors on this site and give an overview of my project.  This will be another way of getting the word out.  I want to have a carbon calculator on the website and maybe there could be a way for people to sign up to participate and send in donations online.  This could be a great way of expanding the project beyond Blair.

Besides asking companies to donate to our program, I also had the idea of doing fundraising sales or a fun-run to raise money.