The Student Sustainability Design Challenge (SSDC) is about helping middle and high school students gain employment skills, agency, and career knowledge through team-based community projects focused on the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs).
But it’s more than that. The community partners that engage with students through SSDC reap benefits as well. Now in its third year, SSDC never fails to offer opportunities for employers, community organizations, and post-secondary schools to showcase their best practices and the jobs or programs they offer.
The SSDC puts our sponsors and partners in front of a youth audience that’s all ears when it comes to learning about employment and post-secondary training opportunities or finding out how companies and organizations in our region are advancing sustainability.
Jeannette, PA-based Ebara Elliott Energy’s Operations Director, Mike Storms, said his company became one of seven sponsors for this year’s SSDC because the program aligns with Ebara’s own focus on pursuing the UNSDGs.
Last year, Storms said he shared his career journey with students at the kickoff, and Ebara’s Human Resources Department hosted a table to showcase the company’s career options.
As a means for reaching young people on the cusp of making career choices, “I don’t know that it gets any better,” said Storms. “When you’re going to a session like that, and there’s that much exposure to so many different school systems and employers in the area, it’s a huge opportunity.”
Similarly, Carnegie Mellon University’s Green Practices & Sustainability Manager, Deborah Steinberg, who hosted a site visit for Bethel Park High School’s team, finds working with SSDC participants an opportunity to extend education about the school’s environmental work beyond the campus.
Touring and learning about CMU’s roof and rain gardens “might potentially inspire these students to do this kind of work, maybe come to school here, or remember this in the work they do in the future,” she said.
Indeed, the tour made an impact and informed the project that Bethel Park students designed. They devised options for diverting storm water that creates drainage problems on their school grounds, said Science Teacher Lee Cristofano, who supported the team along with Science Teacher and Environmental Club Sponsor Chris Durco.
Altogether, student teams this year designed 35 different projects, ranging from creating a campus bench with recycled bottle caps, planning a school-wide recycling system, and designing bike lanes in a rural community to organizing a garden club to supply food for needy families.
More than 150 middle and high school students presented their work in March during a poster session at Rodef Shalom. At least 500 more participated in the program, designing solutions to make their communities more sustainable.
Teachers invariably said their students benefited in more ways than might meet the eye.
“One of the main things I think they learn is that they can effect change,” said Marnie Arnold, a Gifted Support Teacher at Avonworth High School. “I think it’s important that they understand that they can be change agents.”
Arnold said working on the projects also helps students develop employability skills like communication.
“They’re communicating with our administrators, setting up meetings, and communicating within a team,” she said. “They’re building skills and experience that will give them more confidence.”
Students also said they developed or improved skills as they pursued their projects.
Caleb, who worked on the Blackhawk High School team that collected bottle caps for fabricating benches, found the work made him more organized.
“We learned we had to divide the project into manageable parts,” he said.
He also said the team found that innovation and sustainability can be compatible if you “take a step back, rather than forward, and look at what you already have available.”
Dozens of community partners were involved in the SSDC this year. The Consortium thanks them as well as the corporations that, along with Ebara, served as sponsors, including Covestro, EQT, PITT OHIO, PNC, PPG, and UPMC.
