Ever since launching the ‘‘sustainable pencil challenge” in late February, the Green Team at Cabin John Middle School in Potomac has gained some serious name recognition at the school.
The concept of the challenge was to offer a free mechanical pencil to anyone at the school who pledged to use it for the remainder of the year. Students will receive prizes — like gift certificates and movie tickets — the longer they are able to hang on to the pencil.
The idea was to offer incentives for students and staff to learn about sustainability by re-using materials.
‘‘People don’t know how many pencils they waste,” said Harrison McCabe, a sixth-grader and member of the Green Team. ‘‘But if you just have one, you’re going to keep track of it.”
The school’s ‘‘Green Team” is part of Montgomery County Public Schools Green Schools program, which promotes efficient energy use at schools. All MCPS schools have a ‘‘School Eco Response Team” — known as SERT — a group made up of students and teachers who aim to make the school more energy efficient. However, middle and high schools must also apply to take part in the Green Schools program, which demands a higher level of environmental organization, said Karen Anderson, Green Schools program manager for MCPS. Teams also take part in awareness raising about eco-friendly techniques among the school community.
Representatives from green school teams meet several times a year to discuss programs they have implemented at their schools. At the end of the year, awards are handed out for the most innovative ideas, Anderson said.
For Cabin John Green Team organizer Kelly Boyd, a sixth-grade English teacher at the school, the challenge was a way to introduce earth-friendly habits to students at a young age.
‘‘We want this to carry over into other aspects of their lives,” Boyd said. ‘‘They’re 12 and 13, so this is the time in their lives that we want to have this ingrained in them so it becomes part of their habits.”
The group ordered about 300 pencils to dole out, figuring there would be plenty left over. But the pencil supply was depleted before the challenge was officially announced.
‘‘For the first week, the line was halfway across the hallway; we had to start sending people back to their classrooms,” said seventh-grader Alicia Loh. By Thursday, the group had handed out more than 600 pencils, after receiving a pencil donation from Office Depot.
Now, students say, more classmates are familiar with the Green Team as ‘‘the ones who are running the pencil challenge.”
‘‘It’s amazing how many people are participating in the pencil challenge even though it is our first school-wide event,” wrote Green Team member Matthew Wilson, in an e-mail to The Gazette.
The effort is not only about raising environmental awareness, students say. ‘‘It’s teaching responsibility because you’re keeping track of the pencil for the whole year,” said eighth-grader Hannah Dannenfeldt. Many teachers at the school are expressing gratitude that students are coming to class prepared, and don’t have to ask for a writing utensil.
Keeping track of each child’s pencil, however, is a hefty task. Green team members lent a hand to label each pencil with a unique identifying number. The numbers were then recorded in a large excel spreadsheet. Each week, participants must present the pencil to a faculty member, who checks the number against the list to make sure it’s the correct one.
‘‘The first week we were worried that people would cheat,” said seventh-grader Joey Werble. ‘‘But then they realized they have the pencil – they may as well use it.”
For students who are organizing the challenge, the message is spreading beyond the school grounds. Eighth-grader Yasmine Hentati said that she’s starting to encourage her family to keep track of pencils at home by keeping them all in the same place. Sixth-grader Shemaiah Ellis said that the challenge motivated her mother to buy more re-usable bags for grocery trips.
‘‘More kids are getting the message about using less and keeping track of what you have,” Boyd said.
