Mountain View students devise a school-wide project to handle trash

The 2015 FIRST® LEGO® LEAGUE Trash Trek Challenge asks students to identify a problem with the way people make or handle trash, and then design a solution to the problem.

And the Mountain View Digital Bricks, the school’s Robotics Team, is on the case—the “waste case.”

During a field trip to the Prince William County Balls Ford Road Composting Facility, these students learned that one-fourth of the material brought to landfills is actually organic waste that could be composted.

Armed with this knowledge, the fifth graders created a system to put in place at Mountain View that separates plastic from waste material that can be composted.

“They established separate trash containers in the cafeteria for plastic and organic waste and labeled the bins with large posters,” said third-grade teacher and Robotics club sponsor Jennifer Buckley. “Then our club members manned the bins during lunch shifts showing their fellow students how to sort what can be recycled as plastic and what can be composted.”

Digital Bricks members who led this project think the organic waste collection is starting to get the kids at Mountain View to think more about where their waste goes.