Five years ago, community partner Lindsey Jurca of Surfrider Foundation partnered with then ECHS Senior Jordan Howard to create the Rise Above Plastics Student Speaker Series.
Together, Lindsey and Jordan led a group of forty students in exploring the impact that plastic pollution has on our lives and our oceans, hosted a public speaking bootcamp and then hit the ground to share the message with Los Angeles. In the first year, students presented to more than 8,000 Angelenos, encouraging them to curb their single use plastic habits. Since then, Jordan and Lindsey have had the opportunity to travel to India and The Bahamas to do the same. Together with 5 Gyres, the two have created and led youth summits that empower youth to arrive at their own solutions to plastic pollution — solutions that work for their communities.
Watch the video from SEA Change, their latest project together in Bahamas.
Our students and alumni are our superheroes, and projects like this make it easy to see why. And through the support of community partners like Surfrider & 5 Gyres, the possibilities are endless.
Just as Lindsey and Jordan worked on environmental education to prevent the use of single-use plastics five years ago, current ECHS seniors will also be working on a single-use plastics ban during their intercession project this year. Awareness about single-use plastics has come full circle at ECS!
