Local students push for awareness on plastics, styrofoam usage
Students from Desert Learning Academy, Palm Springs Unified School District’s online virtual school, gave a presentation Wednesday voicing concerns about the dangers of plastic pollution, single-use plastic straws and styrofoam.
The students are participating in a pilot project between the district and AltSchool, with the goal to empower learning. As part of the project, the students wrote letters to the City Council and members of the School Board to voice their concerns about the ongoing use of plastic straws and styrofoam around the world.
“Nine times a day we can fill up Yankee Stadium with plastic straws and different kinds of plastics and I was like wow, we have to do something,” Delaney Bointon, a student said.
“It makes me feel good that I shared something that should have been shared a long time ago,” Maia Houston, a student said.
Palm Springs Mayor pro tem J.R. Roberts and Councilmembers Christy Holstege and Geoff Kors attended the presentation.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1070378709767647232″,”author_name”:”Jeremy Chen”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;4th graders at Desert Learning Academy in &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PalmSprings?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#PalmSprings&#lt;/a&#gt; are showing council members about the dangers of plastic straws and what alternatives there are. Full story coming up tonight on &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/KESQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@KESQ&#lt;/a&#gt;. &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/lAfvTul2qJ”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/lAfvTul2qJ&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Jeremy Chen (@JeremyChenKESQ) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1070378709767647232?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;December 5, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
Roberts said the city of Palm Springs was lookign at implementing a plastics banning spanning containers, not just straws and would have staff research how to do so while keeping in mind business owners.
“We want to do some research and find the alternatives that make sense for the environment, but don’t break the businesses financially,” he said.
Roberts said he was impressed with the student’s passion and presentation.
“These 4th graders actually helped us and made a difference in future policy for Palm Springs, and future policy for a worldwide environmental safety,” Roberts said.
In addition, the students created public service announcements which they plan to release to the local community.
Download the KESQ & CBS Local 2 app on iTunes or Google Play for up-to-the-minute breaking news alerts & more
More: I-Team and Stands for You investigations
Find us on Facebook: KESQ News Channel 3 & CBS Local 2
Follow us on Twitter for breaking news updates: @KESQ & @Local2
We’re on Instagram! @KESQ_News_Channel_3 & @CBSLocal2
Noticias en español: Telemundo 15
