Avondale High School students present at FCA event

Avondale High School students explain the system they designed to address global climate change.

A group of Avondale High School students, participating in a special event at FCA, had the unique opportunity to present and discuss their ideas for addressing climate change with employees at the company’s headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The students, from Science classes at the high school taught by teachers Amy Brown and Noelle Collis, were challenged with answering one question: “How can we, as citizens in the global community, act in residential areas to most effectively decrease the effect of global climate change using the chemical reactions of plants or other autotrophs?”

The students designed and built model systems to address the challenge; presented proposals that explained why citizens should use their system including the purposes of and how the system works; listed the materials necessary to build their system; and provided a breakdown of costs. In addition, students created an advertisement brochure meant to encourage citizens to use their system and act on the issue of global climate change.

For Avondale High School freshman, Jad Fakhoury, participating in the challenge was a way to explore how every citizen could pitch in and help reverse the effects of global climate change. “Our ideas are cost effective and fairly simple to implement. Most of the students created systems that the average resident could do on their own for not a lot of expense,” he said.

As FCA employees passed by his display, Jad engaged them in conversation and explained his system. Articulate and knowledgeable, he fielded their questions and discussed with them ways to improve upon his idea. “This is such a great opportunity for us (students) to get involved in such an important issue,” Jad said. “Being here, talking with people who are experts, exchanging ideas – it’s cool,” he added.

Jad feels that environmental concerns should be “all hands on deck” and that “events like this can inspire students to get involved.” He has taken to heart what event organizer and FCA Environmental Specialist, David Jump said in his invitation to the students to participate, “because you are the future, we are counting on you to come up with a solution to these issues to preserve this planet for generations to come.”