Congratulations to Asheville High School! This team of young teenage change makers and their teachers won the EcoChallenge! Congratulations also to all the other winners! And all the other participants! Let’s keep making change happen! Thanks EcoChallenge for a fun, educational, challenging and motivating time!
Our team came it at #43 out of 767 teams.
https://drawdown.ecochallenge.org/dashboards/teams/climate-kiss-australia. Not bad for a little Australian group of eco minded friends.
Our team shared their stories on the Drawdown EcoChallenge page (where other teams also shared their great ideas and inspiring learnings). I shared our team’s collective stories as blog posts on Facebook. I’ve linked to all the Facebook blog posts so you can relive the fun and excitement below:
I personally spent up to 60 minutes learning about drawdown solutions to reverse global warming (micro wind, educating girls, proper disposal of refrigerants, food choices that limit deforestation, the importance of air to composting for reducing methane, the value of walkable cities and the value of reducing water leakages in city piping). I consumed 28 meatless or vegan meals, developed much better habits in regards to using less plastic, and contacted public officials about one issue (walkable cities). I also reflected on the value of the three-weeks the EcoChallenge runs over, as that is how long it takes to form new habits.
I loved learning more about barriers globally to women’s representation that Jess presented, along with her entertaining stories about shoe repairs, storage of soft plastics, and conversations about food waste with friends. Thanks to Ingela and Jess for some great suggestions about carbon offsetting our flights. Thanks to Jessie for a poignant piece about ecological grief and the need to protect and value our natural wonders. Thanks to Simone and Annie for logging your actions while some other team members fell by the wayside. (It is a challenge right! To make these changes while juggling busy lives! 🙂 ) Thanks to Nell, Julie (my mum!) and Fflur for some great vegan and vegetarian food ideas. Thanks to Fflur for reminding us to scrunch our Easter egg wrappers in a ball before recycling. Big thanks to my mum for sticking with the challenge even while on holiday in Hawaii, and for sharing some insights into solar power installation in town houses! Thanks to Eve for getting her amazing Hope-Suds soaps in on the action and to Gillian for a great reminder about the fun of micro lending and watching how a seemingly small donation might make someone else’s business idea on the other side of the world fly!
As a team here are our stats: up to 40 locally sourced meals consumed, up to 1 donations made, up to 5 public officials contacted, up to 15 conversations with people, up to 4 people helped, up to 1 documentaries watched, up to 5708 pounds CO2 saved. up to 45 gallons water saved, up to 385 minutes spent learning, up to 173 meatless or vegan meals consumed. 🙂 Yay us!
Finally, I made my first video for the planet. i.e. not a music video. As part of the EcoChallenge’s “unselfieme” challenge. Here it is. Why I did the EcoChallenge:
Climate K.I.S.S. 
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