14-Year-Old Colorado Student Designs Waste Management Project

The Climate Leaders Fellowship‘s spring cycle challenged high school students to research waste issues in their communities and find local solutions. Students launched donation drives and collaborated with other students worldwide to achieve their goals.

The fellowship is offered as a collaboration between Stanford University’s Deliberative Democracy Lab and the Rustic Pathways Foundation.

Readout interview with Aryan below!

Aryan Tuteja
Age 14
Discovery Canyon Campus
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Tell us about yourself! 

I am Aryan Tuteja from Discovery Canyon Campus.  I live in Colorado Springs and am fourteen years old. I am interested in software and cyber engineering.

What specific problem were you addressing in your community? 

I was aiming to address the problem of waste management. But more specifically, I was hoping to create more composting and recycling facilities as well as help them promote them. We did this project because we’re passionate about waste management and after looking at the statistics, we decided we needed to do something about this problem.

What did you do for your project?

I made a webpage, helped design the trifold, as well as presented it to the rest of our civics classroom. We collected contributions of funds that people donated on our fundraising page.

Which groups of people did you try to get to engage with your project?

We tried to engage our school in helping us make a change by putting up QR codes for them to scan. We didn’t work with any organizations but were really grateful for all the help teachers provided us. I would like to thank the teachers for answering our survey as well as the students for really taking in our presentation and acting on the problem. Our target audience was more informed and many of them told us that they wanted to be involved as well.

What were the results? 

We had 194 views on our page and currently are waiting on donations.

How did participating in the Climate Leaders Fellowship make you feel? 

By participating in the Climate Leaders Fellowship, I am proud of how successful we were in spreading the information. The Climate Leaders Fellowship was a wonderful experience for me which helped me make a change in the world. This fellowship helped me gain many skills from communication skills to confidence.