Rowan Elementary students win Department of Energy poster contest
Three Rowan Elementary students demonstrated their environmental consciousness for Earth Day by finishing in the top places of the National Energy Technology Laboratory’s annual Earth Day poster contest.
The NETL is a national laboratory with three sites across the country: Morgantown, W.Va., Albany, Ore., and Pittsburgh. For each of the three sites, the agency hosts an annual Earth Day poster contest and invites students from the surrounding school districts in each area to participate.
Finishing in first place in the fourth-grade category was Yasmeen Fahs, whose winning poster beckoned onlookers to “Invest your time and effort for the clean future” by, among other things, recycling batteries properly.
Rowan Elementary students also took the top two slots in the second-grade category, with Alex Reiterovych taking first place and Nash Caldwell coming in second.
Fahs’ first-place poster was actually a side project which accompanied something much larger. Recently, she has started a long-term project entitled “Batteries That Last and Last,” dedicated to collecting and properly recycling used batteries. This involved, among other things, creating a collection box at Rowan Elementary to allow students and teachers to drop off their used batteries.
According to Fahs’ mother, Anjela Begmatova, the project is a continuation of research she performed last year when she was in third grade. That year, she participated in the National PTA’s Reflections arts program and took home both the Award of Excellence and the Award of Outstanding Interpretation in the Film Production category.
Fahs earned an $800 Young Artist Scholarship and a gold medal for her efforts, with an additional $200 going to the Rowan Elementary PTA.
“While researching the problem and creating content for her video last year, she realized that there was much more to environmental conservation and that each individual can help with that,” said Begmatova. “That is how she decided to educate students at her school and help recycle used batteries.”
Begmatova also credited Rowan’s assistant principal Jenay Sharp-Leach and gifted support teacher Rebecca Hester for their support of Fahs’ project.
Along with the collection box, Fahs created a second video with more detailed information, and also presented her project at the school’s STEM fair earlier this year.
“By doing so, she hoped to raise awareness among students and show what we all can do to help save our planet,” said Begmatova.
As of early May, Fahs’ used battery recycling project is still ongoing. According to Begmatova, Fahs went in expecting to collect and recycle 10 pounds of used batteries, but so far she has come up with three times that amount.
Next year, Fahs will move to another school after graduating from fourth grade. She will leave the battery collection box behind and, in the words of Begmatova, hopes “students would continue the good work.”
