Ten Peekskill Middle School students will be among the 14 schools that will travel to south Florida later this month where they will showcase the results of their work to peers and a panel of educators, government officials and community volunteers as part of Wheelabrator Technologies’ 19th Annual Symposium for Environment and Education.
The symposium includes an awards dinner featuring ocean explorer Fabien Cousteau and a trip to a Miami Marlins- New York Mets baseball game.
Every year Peekskill students, with the help of Peekskill faculty and employees from Wheelabrator Technologies, identify an environmental challenge in their community at the start of the school year with the goal of developing a long-term solution.
Peekskill Middle School teachers Scott Tabone, who advises the group with fellow teacher Liz Damiano, said the kids were inspired by the impact of Superstorm Sandy.
“The storm had such a huge impact on the whole metropolitan area, especially on Westchester County and Peekskill, that the kids wanted to do a meteorology topic about the weather,” said Tabone. “So what they did was they investigated hurricanes and looked to see why a storm like Sandy hit the northeast and how global warming changes the pattern of how storms move.”
The students then created a public service announcement to help people prepare for such a storm.
“The public service announcement was sent out to media outlets and throughout the district and its educational channel about how to deal with natural disasters when they occur,” Tabone said.
Tabone said that Wheelabrator, which runs a facility in the city, did more than just fund the project and the trip. Company employees Ken Phillips and Brett Baker helped guide students through the project, he said.
“They come to all the meetings with the kids and help out with the research, so it’s not like Wheelabrator just gives us money to throw their name out there,” Tabone said. “They’ve been a huge help getting this program going.”
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