Ben Galisha and Juana Padron set up an experiment for some elementary school kids recently.
First, they soaked an onion in an electrolyte drink. According to the YouTube video where the idea came from, the onion was supposed to get enough electricity from the drink to charge an iPod.
“It didn’t really work,” Padron says. “But just at the moment I plugged it in, it turned on, so it made it seem like it worked.”
So the recent high school graduates faked it a little. No worries. The kids thought it was cool, and it got them interested in learning about energy.
And that’s the whole point of what Padron, Galisha and three other students are doing in their roles as part of the Exxon-Mobil Green Team, which is working out of the White Rock YMCA this summer.
The team works with kids at the Y three days a week, playing games and doing activities that focus on recycling, conserving energy and other ways to be green. The five students also are expected to read up on environmental issues, and incorporate what they learn into the lessons.
On Wednesdays, they attend classes at SMU, along with other Green Team members working all around the city.
“The classes have to do with careers, energy and leadership,” says Padron, a graduate of Peak Preparatory who is attending Texas Woman’s University in the fall.
“They’re pushing you toward real life and how to be a leader.”
Besides that, each team member submits a blog post each week, in which they write about what they’ve accomplished or learned. And at the end of the summer, they’ll put on a presentation for the YMCA’s board of directors.
“We wanted to take it a step further and bring this environmental message out to the community,” says Lindsay Edelman, the YMCA’s family program director.
The White Rock Y got a Green Team by applying for a grant from Exxon-Mobil, which provides them with funds to pay the interns.
But that’s all it provided. So Edelman and Carol Whitsitt, the YMCA’s youth development director, decided to apply for supplemental grant. They received one from Constellation Energy that provides funds so the Green Team could have laptops, video cameras and cell phones to use.
“We wanted them to have laptops and cameras because we want to teach them to use technology in a way that betters the community,” Edelman says. “They can use the technology they already know to get this information out to the world around them.”
Joycelyn Branch, who just graduated from Pegasus Charter School and also is attending TWU, was an intern on the Green Team last summer as well.
But this year is different, she says. They are expected to write in journals and blog every week, but they never run out of material, she says.
“We’re working with kids,” she says. “There’s always something to write about.”
Edelman and Whitsitt, who admit to being “the hippies of the branch”, are passionate about teaching kids about environmental responsibility.
“They don’t really get that in school,” Edelman says.
And if kids learn about recycling and energy conservation at a young age, then it becomes a habit and not something they have to train themselves to do later.
Hearing it from other kids makes it especially effective, the staff members say.
“People really sell teenagers short because they think they’re not compassionate or committed,” Edelman says. “But they’re some of the most creative, passionate people in our society.”
To learn more
Catch up with the Exxon-Mobil Green Team members at the White Rock YMCA on their blog: whiterockgreenteam.wordpress.com.
