Environmental Connections Contest
2007 Winning Essay
Paradise Valley High School
Marni Landry (teacher), Jacen Wyke, Cassi Willis,
Cassidy Pattik, Nicole Diaz, Andrew Joe, Amy Palmer
Prior to entering the competition, we, Paradise Valley’s
biology club, planned to give back and encourage the
public to maintain our environment. So when we heard of
the Phoenix Zoo’s Barrel Project, our club did not have
to think twice about entering. There was no question
that we wanted to help our community. Wanting to promote
recycling and appreciation for the environment moved us
to create the barrel and set an example for everyone.
This emphasizes not only the destruction of polluting
and not recycling but demonstrates the importance of
caring for our environment. Our barrel exhibits both
sides of recycling in a poetic manner. We aim to
celebrate the beauty of a pollution-free world.
Helping our community concerns us greatly because it
affects us as much as everyone else. We know littering
is unacceptable and want to remind everyone to recycle.
What is wrong with littering? It’s a tragedy to the
nature that surrounds us. Our beloved world will become
utterly unusable and this is happening faster than most
people think. The common misconception is that the
world’s problems will not really come into affect until
future generations but the truth is that the
environmental destruction is happening now and if we try
to prevent it, then maybe we can make the world of
tomorrow a better place. This being said, we need to
spread the word to our fellow human beings: recycle!
Our group created this barrel design to emphasize the
distinguishing factors between a clean environment and a
contaminated one. Our theme is represented through a
catch phrase, “To Recycle or Not to Recycle” because
these Shakespeare-inspired words are a beautiful way to
say, “throw out your garbage!” We want a clean,
pollutant-free world; therefore the beauty in the title
is fitting. This phrase is centered between two sets of
biomes, some showing how not recycling makes a
disgusting, uninhabitable world, while the other biomes
emphasize the glorious, healthy state the world could be
in if it is taken care of. Our biomes display the
diversity in nature showing a rainforest, a coniferous
forest, and an ocean. Your pollution does not just
affect your surroundings; it affects many outside
habitats.
Being a part of this project has given us the great
opportunity to get to know each other and become
friends! Our communication skills within the club have
improved exponentially from all the time we have spent
together. The input from our teammates has made this
project better than it ever could have been. Through all
the arguing and laughter, we uncovered our respect for
each other’s ideas and combined them into one
collaborative effort!
Working on this barrel has been an enriching and
positive experience for not only the students but for
the entire community. We made our barrel bold and
informative to get our wonderful point, to recycle,
across. Our eye-catching barrel helps to show how
neglecting our Earth can damage all environments and
make life less happy. If you value your world, recycle.
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