NEWAYGO COUNTY, MI – When Gabriella Dakin looks up at the night sky in her small hometown of White Cloud, she wonders whether bigger cities around the country can see the same stars as she can.
“I see a lot of stars and wonder what people think in Chicago about all the light pollution, where my brother lives,” said Dakin, who recently finished sixth grade at White Cloud Junior High School. “You can’t see stars in the night sky there -- I know when I visit him. I can’t see stars in Chicago.”
Dakin’s curiosity about light pollution was what inspired her and a team of five other White Cloud Junior High School students to enter the Lexus Eco Challenge, a national STEM contest for students in grades 6-12 to tackle environmental issues related to land, water, air and climate.
The White Cloud “Starry Nights” team was made up of Dakin, Christian Vanover, Ysidro George Padron and Dominic MacDonald, all of whom recently finished sixth grade, and seventh graders Cole Reynolds and Elijah Cook.
Together, the team led a countywide effort to lower light pollution levels by encouraging Newaygo County residents to turn off their porch, garage and yard lights. They ended up with 3,770 homes participating in the project.
The reward for their efforts: A total of $25,000 in scholarship funds after the White Cloud team won first place among 10 grand prize finalists across the country.
Sherry Clafin, the group’s advisor and STEM teacher at White Cloud, said the group’s prize was the “icing on the cake” of a job well done by the student group.
“I have been so impressed with the diligence, hard work and extra time my students put into their Lexus Eco Challenge action plans,” Clafin said. “They were able to get people in the community to do something for the Earth that they might not normally do and think about their impact on the environment.”
The student group won two rounds of the challenge: The first was an “Air and Climate” round, where the group worked with their schoolmates and Newaygo County residents to lower light pollution levels. The White Cloud group received $15,000 after winning the first round.
In the final challenge, the group had to expand upon their idea from the first round. The team pushed its dark-skies goal even further to help migrating birds, which they found out often hit brightly lit buildings, cell towers, power lines and power poles at night when they return in early spring.
One of their efforts to help bird migration included reaching out to 343 astronomy clubs around the country to spread the word to turn off lights for two consecutive March weekends when birds would return to ensure a safer journey.
For team member MacDonald, the work was challenging, but overall he enjoyed learning new ways he could help the environment – and the scholarship didn’t hurt, either.
“The most challenging part of the final challenge was emailing the 300-plus astronomy groups in the U.S.," he said. “The most rewarding was going through all the hard work and to have the bragging rights of winning first place and the cash prize.”
The prize will be split among the students, and a portion will go toward the school and teacher advisor.
White Cloud wasn’t the only Michigan school represented in the competition. The “WMS Climate Justice League” from Whitehall Middle School also advanced in the national competition, winning a $15,000 scholarship in the “Air and Climate” round.
The "WMS Climate Justice League" from Whitehall Middle School won a $15,000 scholarship for their environmental work in a national competition. Left to right: Tyler Van Antwerp, Lianne Fagan, Adalyn Britton, Grace McDowell, Kaiden Sylvester, McKayla Tyers and Mackenzie Cregg. (Courtesy Photo | Susan Tate)
The group included Whitehall Middle School students Tyler Van Antwerp, Lianne Fagan, Adalyn Britton, Grace McDowell, Kaiden Sylvester, McKayla Tyers and Mackenzie Cregg. Together, the group decided to focus on deforestation with a goal of protecting and planting trees to mitigate climate change.
The students reduced the use of paper products at their school by replacing paper napkins in the staff lounge with reusable linen napkins they made themselves and creating Eco Party Packs filled with reusable plates, bowls, cups and silverware for the school, said advisor Susan Tate.
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