Key Takeaways
Encouraging solution ideation
Students were able to successfully ideate their own solutions in solving single-use plastic problems in their community or their own schools.
Initiating change at the community level
The program promoted the idea of cleaning the community from plastic waste with theme “A clean community starts from us”.
The workshop on plastic management took place on November 20-21 in Glad Tidings International School’s WTJ hall. The workshop was organized by Ho Ho Heroes with the support of E2STEM Education and Glad Tidings International School. It gathered 150 teachers and students from various levels – secondary (Grade 8-9) and high school (Grade 10-11). The objective was to raise the awareness of the disadvantage of using too much single-use plastic. The goal of the workshop was to foster a sense of responsibility and encourage proactive participation in curbing plastic pollution and also to inspire the students to develop their very own innovative solutions to solve their community’s plastic problem.
The event commenced with a warm welcome from Dr. Katrina Navallo, Program Manager of ASEAN-Japan Centre and delivered an insightful opening speech highlighting the power of youth to bring change to their environmental concerns.
Following this, the Ho Ho Heroes started by giving introductions to the nature of plastic, and introduced them to see the disadvantages of single use plastic and strategically linked this to address the escalating concerns of plastic pollution.
After numerous topics were presented by the Ho Ho Heroes Team, the students were all equipped with a better understanding of plastics pollution. Therefore, we introduce them to the Solution Ideation challenge which allows them to ideate a solution if they were given $500.00 to solve a problem they see in their community. All the students came up with very creative and practical solutions. They presented it to our 4 judges (two teachers from GTIS and two from Ho Ho Heroes) and their ideas were judged and given points based on several criteria. These summed up the first day of our program.
Figure 4&5. Solution Ideation Challenge Presentation and Judging Process.
In the fresh morning of day two, the Ho Ho Heroes team, together with facilitation from Glad Tidings International School teachers, initiated the activity of picking up plastic in the village around the school. The theme of the activity is “A clean community starts from us”. In this activity, we have picked up 35 full bags of plastic and are ready to be recycled in the local factory.
Figure 6&7. “A clean community starts from us”
After a 15-minute break, we start our final challenge – Be Creative Challenge. All groups of students were asked to recycle plastic bottles they have picked up from the street and stored in the school into their own creative things with beautiful designs and effective usage. Their ideas were super creative and good looking as well.
Figure 8&9. Students recycling the water bottle and plastic that they have collected.
For the final program of the event, we announced the Top 3 winners of both Solution Ideation and Be Creative Challenge. We awarded every team with some snacks for their very hard work and attention in the two days. The top 3 winners also receive a special Certificate from us also.
Students’Post and Pre – Workshop Surveys
Pre-Workshop
Post-Workshop
Students’ Rating and Feedbacks
Analysing the above responses from the Pre- and Post-Workshop Survey, we see that the number of students who gained an understanding about plastic waste management has increased, especially single use plastic has increase in a very noticeable value.
