DCMS teacher Nikki Elliott, plastics activist Captain Charles Moore, and DCMS students Forrest Schmitt, Giltavia Goodman, Tiia McKinney, Simeon Bethel at the POPS Conference in Dana Point, CA.
(Eleuthera, Bahamas) -Four members of the Deep Creek Middle School’s Eco-Club recently attended the Plastic Ocean Pollution Solutions (POPS) Conference in Dana Point, California. This is DCMS’s third consecutive year sending students to the 3-day intensive summit, where students and teachers from around the globe receive advanced training from experts in leadership, public speaking, community engagement, art, science, filmmaking and more.
Prior to attending summit, the students (Forrest Schmitt, Giltavia Goodman, Tiia McKinney, and Simeon Bethel) spent months brainstorming solutions to plastic ocean pollution and preparing to share their ideas with the other 75 students and teachers at POPS. Once at the summit, they participated in workshops led by professionals in the areas of action planning, scientific research, filmmaking, public speaking, and pitching projects and ideas to help further develop their initial solution ideas. At the conclusion of the 3-day summit, the DCMS students had the opportunity to present on what they learned while at the summit and how they are going to apply it once they return home to Eleuthera.
Their project is to have large-scale beach cleanups throughout the island and then erect signs on the cleaned beaches, informing beachgoers of how many pounds of plastic and debris had been collected from the beach. These signs will also ask for the public’s help saying, “Please Help us in Our Effort to Keep These Wondrous Treasures Clean, Green and Pristine”. Something the students took away from the conference was that just having beach cleanups would not solve all of their problems. They also need to inform the public about plastic and its harmful effects on the environment. Conference attendee and Eco-Club treasurer, Simeon Bethel said, “By educating the population of Eleuthera, and hopefully the Bahamas, it will stop and target the problem of plastic ocean pollution at the core.”
Bethel also reflected on the entire experience of attending POPS by saying, “This conference allowed us to improve our project to get the best and most effective results out of the whole event. All in all, the Plastic Ocean Pollution Solution Conference was an amazing experience for my peers and me. It was definitely an inspiring and life-changing event.”
