Methodology

Elaine Lin / Rachel Garnadi

April 11, 2011

Ms. Adams

Capstone

Methodology

Global warming is a highly discussed topic these past few years. Due to global warming, the weather is inconsistent and frequently changing. Many of our world’s wildlife and natural habitats have been affected byglobal warming, especially in the colder regions. Rachel and I realized that if we wanted to save these endangered species and to make our planet greener so that future generations are also able to enjoy these wonderful sights, we must take action now. Because most of us take everything we have for granted – going to stores to buy food, driving to get to a destination, etc, Rachel and I have decided to inform people about global warming, the greenhouse effect, as well as sustainable living. In order to accomplish this, we have decided to fundraise money to purchase a greenhouse for our school.

Although Rachel and I knew some of the effects of global warming and the greenhouse effect, we wanted to become experts in this topic in order to inform others about this issue. We gathered diagrams depicting the greenhouse effect as well as researched articles about global warming. For our sponsors, we chose Ms. Williams because she is the sponsor of the Gardening Club and is passionate about teaching students about how to grow their own food. Also, we chose Ms. Kerner because she is a science teacher who knows a lot about these topics.

In the beginning, Rachel and I planned to rebuild the greenhouse in our school that was unfortunately destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. We talked to Mr. Yu about this idea, and were informed that we would need to talk to Mr. Amerson for his approval. Mr. Amerson liked our idea and initially agreed to our plan. However, a few weeks later, we were then notified that the area where our school greenhouse resides would become a parking lot, and therefore could not be built there. We then talked to our sponsors, and they suggested that we should rebuild the greenhouse in our school’s courtyard, where everyone can see it. Because when I talked to students about my capstone project, many were surprised to hear that our school even had a greenhouse.

Our initial goal was to raise about $3000 to rebuild the school’s greenhouse, but was then changed to $1000 after learning that the greenhouse could not be built in the place where we had originally planned to build it. We talked to the students from the gardening club about fundraising ideas, and ultimately decided that we would sell Chinese food. Selling Chinese food was a complete success; the amount of money we made was double the amount of money we invested. We knew that at this rate, we would reach out goal of $1000 in no time. However, unfortunately we encountered some setbacks. After selling Chinese food for about 5 times, we were then informed that we were no longer allowed to sell Chinese food.

The Gardening Club helped us out a lot with our capstone project. On many Club Fridays, Ms. Williams took the students out to clean the area where the greenhouse will be placed. Also, several students from the gardening club helped us sell Chinese food. The gardening club was very supportive of each milestone we accomplished.

With this setback of not being able to sell Chinese food, Rachel and I knew that we would have to come up with a new fundraising idea. We then came up with the idea of selling advertisements that will be sponsored in our school yearbook. We talked to Ms. Johnson, who is in charge of the yearbook, and she liked our idea. We agreed that we would each get half the profits from each advertisement sold. Now that we had the approval from Ms. Johnson, we wrote our proposals to the local companies. We also designed many sample advertisements to show the companies an example of what the advertisement will look like if they sponsored us. This was not as easy task, and took us nearly two weeks to complete it. After we had the proposal and sample advertisement for each company made, we wanted to go to each company in person to talk to them about our capstone project. However, we could not leave the school campus without a teacher. Fortunately for us, Mr. Sigren agreed to drive us around to all of the local companies.

After going to nearly 20 companies, in the end, only three companies bought an advertisement from us. Because many of the companies we proposed to were franchises, they could not make the decision at the local level of buying an advertisement from us. We were informed that we would have to contact the corporate office to approve of this matter. We contacted the corporate office, but did not get a response. We initially targeted big companies because we thought they would have the money to buy a $30 advertisement to sponsor our school, but we then realized that targeting big companies was too much of a hassle. Also, Ms. Johnson notified us that we could no longer sell anymore advertisements because the yearbook had no more room to place them.

At this point, we raised about $500 and were ready to see what greenhouse we could buy – only a mere 6 x 4 greenhouse, and still short on money to purchase other materials. We then talked to Mr. Yu about our problem and asked if he could let us sell Chinese food one last time, which he approved. It was a complete success as well – our new budget was now about $650. We now had the money to buy a 6 x 8 greenhouse, which we did, using HISD’s Credit Card. We then talked to Mr. Renner about making a "foundation" for the greenhouse / ways to make the greenhouse more sturdy. We discussed about using cement /rebar to embed the greenhouse, however, Mr. Yu has vetoed that decision. We then decided that the foundation for the greenhouse would require sand and tiles. We would first put sand to level out the area in the courtyard we will use, and then places tiles where the greenhouse will be placed.

We finally placed the order for the greenhouse, and it finally arrived on April 14, 2011. We still need to purchase the sand and tiles to make the foundation. After the greenhouse is built, we will then buy seeds, soil, and plants to place inside the greenhouse. With the help of the gardening club, some plants have already been planted. We hope that students and teachers will use this greenhouse to enhance students’ learning of science. We also hope that after students learn that they can grow their own food and that it can taste good, it will impact their life and make them want to make a difference. We want them to know that sustainable living is possible and reducing global warming all contributes to helping make for a greener planet.