Summer 7/6 Week

This was a short week since I went to Kauai for the latter part. We're currently preparing for the summit in two weeks in SF (that I will attending) that's targeted towards building college freshmen environmental programs. So I've largely been working towards that by looking into our dorm section. I did research on different brands the make environmentally conscious bedding etc as well as updated our pinterest page.

A second aspect of this week was me reaching out to possible Green U speakers. I drafted up letters to different Whole Foods executives and Mathis. Of course nothing went out without strong censorship from Judi, so I doubt I can even really argue that I wrote the letters in the end. I sent out a lot of feelers this week so I'm guessing I'll be pretty busy next week. I plan on doing a conscious cookbook interview next week with a chef from AZ so I'll spend the beginning of next week getting organized for that.

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Summer 6/29 Week

This week was all about Green U prep. I started the week organizing outfits for the makeover portion of Green U weekend. This involved going through the current database of clothing brands that support us as well as making a new database of brands that we can reach out to for support. I don't like the aspect of asking people for things (I'm sure some psychologist would have a field day with that statement) so Megan and I have paired up and she reaches out and I organize from there. Creating the outfits was fun because it was give or take glorified online shopping only I don't get the clothes. Judi wants me to fly out early in November to organize the whole style section, which seems daunting to say the least.

The second aspect of the week involved reaching out to speakers for Green U. Megan and I worked on drafting up a mock up letter that everyone can use to send out to possible speakers. We got Lauren Singer which makes me so happy! She was like my brainchild. The goal is to reach out to all of our hopeful speakers by next Friday.

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Summer 6/22 Week

This week was a hectic one. TG is preparing a cookbook of FLOSN restaurants across the country and so Monday was the official launch for that project. We need to focus on two organic farms and two farm to table restaurants in each state and I had the job of Arizona and Hawaii. I made a spreadsheet of all the organic farms and farm to table restaurants in the state of Hawaii and did the same for Arizona. I then researched their accreditations and legitimacy before selecting my final restaurants and farms. I drafted a letter to each one as well as found proper contacts and sent them a letter explaining the project and their involvement. I have had one response so far from a restaurant in Arizona, and thus will probably hop on a call with the head chef next week.

This week I also had to narrow down the speakers for the PGC finals. A series of us made up an excel spreadsheet breaking potential speakers into categories based off their industries (zero waste, food, hemp etc.) and ended up having at least 50 speaker options. I jumped on a conference call yesterday where we presented them to the other interns and proceeded to vote on who we wanted to speak. I personally would love to hear Lauren Singer, Michael Pollan, and Michael Green present!


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Summer 6/15 Week

This week consisted of two major tasks: writing challenges and launching HOTG.

To start writing challenges I first had to curate a challenge and get approval from Judi and Danielle. This involves researching different media sources, news updates, scientific field research etc. about my theme. I selected footprint as my theme due to my past work in the area. I was technically suppose to do the majority of my curating the week that I was in Tahiti, but since I was traveling I had to do that on Monday. It was simple enough really and I got bored with curating and went ahead to writing my challenge. Probably isn't how TG intended, but I did get the work done! After getting curating approval I went ahead and finished up writing my challenge. Footprint was simpler because it's such a narrow niche, so a lot of the challenges will overlap last year. The challenge is broken up by introduction, video, pinterest, sponsors of the day, think notes (four of them), four challenges, and a prize package made up of our sponsors. I finished that challenge and when sent in, it received praise from Judi so I guess I'm off to a great start. They asked me to write more so next week will probably consist of writing.

Humans of TG started this week and it had a very successful launch! Not sure how much impact it will have on the organization but Judi really loves it. It already has 200+ likes. I need to find an environmental mentor/hero to take a picture of and interview within the next week. There's so many to choose from! The HoTG idea got me a lot of support in the organization (all the interns got an email sent out praising my idea which seemed a bit over the top) so I feel like my hard work is starting to allow me to have more say and more flexibility. I've been working more directly with Judi, which is getting me out of all the red tape and rules of other interns.

FINALLY: This week TG booked my flights to SF. I'll be there for the college/intern summit July 21st-27th. Really excited! Going to SF with TG always got me really excited about what my life would be like in college, so it's perfect that I'm going there the end of the summer before college!

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Summer 6/8 Week

Not in lab due to trip to Tahiti.

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Summer 6/1 Week

I started the week with the weekly TG conference call. I got the unfortunate task of organizing TG's pinterest, which is actually surprisingly popular. As we finish up the road tour and move into the next PGC it's important that we update our sponsor's promotions. A majority of this comes from our pinterest, plus our pinterest was in need of some organizing anyways. Now that we've kept our sponsors happy I feel a bit more relieved because we can now work on other things. The second half of this week was dedicated to outreach. TG currently has a huge database of high schools and colleges in each state, but they became determined to grow it. Each intern took two states to focus on and add to. I got Hawaii and then Oklahoma which is a bit contrasting! I looked through each of their public school registry online to make sure we had contact information for each public school in the state. It's ironic that I'm doing this because their email to Dr. Bill is what got me involved in PGC in the first place. Finished the week with a marathon day (a day where you're given a task to accomplish a certain theme) which involves being in contact with Judi and the rest of the team for around six hours and having three or so conference calls. I did this while babysitting so it was a challenge. I have new respect for working moms! I gave Judi the idea of doing Humans of Turning Green (a spinoff of HONY) as a social media platform and she loved it. That should be launching when I come back from Tahiti.

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Final Video

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End Of Year Post

Oh my! This is my last official high school assignment. The energy lab has been good to me. The best part is that my project isn't really ending when I graduate high school but more just evolving. I'll be working at the lab this summer and thus I'll still get to pretend that I wouldn't haven't graduated yet. I started with Hotchkiss which was a cool project but maybe didn't live up to it's full potential? It taught me a lot about how to work with people. A lot of my experiences this year just kind of happened, like going to SF in November, and so more often in not the less I tried to control my project the more it would take form. That was a struggle for me, having to sometimes balance knowing when to have control and when to let things take form on their own. I'm excited about my future internships this summer both at the energy lab and Turning Green, both are great experiences to have.

I was lucky enough to have amazing people to work with like Alice and Zen at the energy lab. I hope I helped them get excited about what the place can do. I think I'll leave behind maybe a path that wasn't there before. The lab can often seem intimidating to students, and I hope that I showed people that you don't have to be a Harvard bound physics student to grow from it. Of course I would be happy if students do PGC next year at HPA! I'll see how that works out. I could always peer pressure Alice and Zen into it.

My project consisted of a lot of hands on work experience. I run our social medias, which taught me a lot, had to deal with outreach and even touched on branding. I also helped launch a branch of an organization which as look back on it was not an easy job. I continue to be on their Student Advisory Board as well. I feel like I can graduate knowing I made an impact on the organization, and that's a great feeling to have.

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32.2 Week Summary

This week was angled towards gearing up for my presentation. Megan did a great job of presenting so I was lucky to get to present with her. I was upset that I didn't get to stay for the others but we had hula practice. I'm getting quite good at explaining Turning Green for people! I've had plenty of practice. I also talked with Megan (different Megan), a close friend of mine who is Chief of Staff this summer at TG. Over the next weekend/week I'll work out the contacts of the Hawaii database as well as decide what themes I want to start working on for PGC challenges. I'm thinking I'll start with Non-GMO and footprint since I know both of those pretty well.

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32.2

I was taking my AP exam during class.

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32.1

Today we had a woman from the Waimea Community Foundation come and visit us which kept us preoccupied. I was able to start and finish the paragraph and picture that will be used for tomorrow's presentation and around the energy lab. I feel well prepared for tomorrow's presentation since we've had so many guests in C period. While I should probably prepare something for the presentation, I'm mostly just planning on getting up there and seeing how my feelings about the energy lab and the project shine through.

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31.3 Week Summary

This week was a mix match of stuff that were all equally important. I needed to get our social media sorted out (which still isn't fixed), I needed to study for my AP Spanish exam, and I really needed to touch base with all the fellow interns. The TG Chief of Staff is a close friend of mine, and thus I feel like I'll rise to a leadership role just by constantly working with her. It looks as though I'll be largely involved in making PGC challenges for next year's competition, which sounds like a lot of fun.

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31.3

Today was a big day since we had the first conference call with all of the summer's interns for TG. Through this call we organized a database of outreach, since our goal is to grow participation for PGC by 75%. Due to this I'll begin the summer getting contacts for the state of Hawaii in different educational systems as well as eventually other states as well. This is kind of an overlap of my work with Hotchkiss, since I'm already familiar with some private schools that I think are going to be crucial in outreach. Overall this conference call really helped plan out what the beginning of my summer is going to look like.

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31.2

Today I mostly studied for my AP Spanish exam as I'm doing my last minute cramming. This was crucial and I praise Dr. Bill for the coffee!

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31.1

Once again our pinterest board for TG is being difficult. With the rebranding comes the change of emails, and that's resulted in us not being able to log into our social medias. I've been trying to figure this out today and I think we've agreed to keep the info@teensturninggreen.org email for our social medias. It's these little things that I'm having to work through.

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30.3 Week Summary

This week was a little bit off since I was dealing with dislocating my knee, but I mostly just thought about the internship offer from Judi and where I could shift TG's future. I'm hoping next week I could start to formulate a major goal I want to accomplish this summer working with them, this of course will be extended when I talk to Judi on the phone next week.

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30.3

Today I accepted Judi's offer to intern for them over the summer. Though I'm not sure if this will be in Marin or in Hawaii. I think this will be a great chance to gain work experience doing something I enjoy.

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30.2

Today I decided that I would make a list of everything wrong with the TG FB page for my conference call with Judi. I think with the rebranding should come some form of a shift to a new style of reaching out to different markets. I'll get Judi's thoughts on it.

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30.1

Here is the link to the article I was interviewed for during my time on the mainland- http://kwhs.wharton.upenn.edu/2015/04/corporate-social-responsibility/

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29.3 Week Summary

Not in the lab due to a college trip.

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