Our Reach
Master Teams
Every year, we highlight five returning "Master Teams" who embody the values of GirlsBuild: leadership, innovation, sustainability, and more. They'll showcase their expertise, learnings, and tips on various topics throughout the school year in order to provide guidance for other, new teams.
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Athenaia LMSTA
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Mindful Gardners
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Girls SOAR
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PLP Girls Gen
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Change Agents
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This Fall, returning back to in person school opened our eyes to how our beautiful little community became a dumping ground for trash on our streets and sidewalks. We also noticed how trees were missing from our main highways and school area. We decided that we wanted to have a planting day and to host trash pick-ups around the community weekly till November 1st. Our goal was to research and plant drought hardy plants around campus. We initially tried to propagate Fig Trees, as they were plentiful on our school grounds, but even after harvesting the parent plant in early September, they hadn't rooted in time by the project deadline. We quickly changed directions and purchased succulents to plant in our school garden after learning that they're just AS efficient and sometimes even more efficient at cleaning the air of CO2. Although we didn't have much to start with, we know these plants are vigorous growers in Southern California climates, especially with bi weekly watering so we'll be propagating and planting many babies from these parent plants soon enough! Our second goal was to host community clean up days every Wednesday for the month of October. We set a goal that we'd be able to pick up at least 100 lbs of trash during this period and we indeed met that goal, and cleaned up Hawthorne Blvd, Acacia Ave and 111th street. We also took to Instagram to become more active with posting and bringing awareness to our activities and the small changes and actions people can take to make our world a cleaner, better place. We joined and promoted the Jason Momoa Challenge, as this had been a focus of ours from the 2019 project and we continue to support banning single use plastics from our daily lives.
The project that we are working on is our school's garden. The goal is to create a green space at school. We chose to take on this challenge because the theme of our GirlsBuild team (Mindful Gardeners) last year was about mental health and plants, "Water your plants, water your mind," and we wanted to further expand our team and our project. Our strategy included collaborating with the Horticulture teacher Mr. Rodriguez whose students work on the garden during the day and the Afterschool AllStars program whose students work on the garden after school. We have also held recruitment events such as on the 2nd week of school (the week of August 23rd) where the original Mindful Gardener members conducted outreach during lunchtime and invited students to join the Mindful Gardeners and another recent event where the Mindful Gardener members passed out flyers and seeds to invite students to participate in "Garden Day" on October 26th.
Our GirlsBuild team, Girls SOAR High worked on raising awareness concerning water conservation and reducing the usage of materials that are not reusable. Our goal was to raise awareness and get involved with our school community, we are working toward having more interaction within the school with boxes that are placed in locations on campus that are meant for recyclable items. We are also raising awareness on water conservation and how using an excessive amount of water impacts the community. We chose to take this challenge as it is an important issue regarding our community. We live in a community that goes through droughts almost yearly and we found these specific topics that may provide a smaller scale yet impactful understanding on social and environmental issues. Strategies used included using flyers and posters as well as simply getting the word out to our peers and teachers.
We chose to focus on global sustainability and conservation by recycling textiles and fabrics (ie., clothes, shoes, linens, etc.). We figured that this was a creative, two-pronged approach. One that would reduce our carbon footprint by having less manufactured items in production, while also helping the underserved communities in our Antelope Valley by clothing them during our cold winter months.
The Change Agents hosted our Environmental Justice campaign throughout the month of October focusing on four specific topics: awareness, fast fashion, waste management, and environmental racism.
We decided to focus on a different environmental issue per week during our month-long plan of action. During the first week the strategy we employed was infographics. We developed our seasoned Did-You-Know campaign to create and share social media content throughout the week and culminate with a Tik Tok on our Action Friday. We followed this plan throughout the month. During week two of the campaign, we created QR codes and posted them around campus showing teaching our peers how to upcycle their clothes and ending the week with our Action Friday: Clothes Swap. Week three focused on waste management Instagram Stories and culminated with our Action Friday DIY Flower Pot lunch activity. The final week was our most difficult week, environmental racism. We decided to simply begin having discussions about environmental racism and culminated with Instagram Stories.
Our goal was to spread awareness and attempt to initiate change in our peers while typing to help sustain our environment within our community. We aimed to inform our peers about environmental issues we can tackle by hosting interactive events throughout the month, culminating with our action Friday events. Our Action Friday events include: Did-You-Know: Tik Tok; Fast Fashion: Clothes Swap; Waste Management: DIY Flower Pot; Environmental Justice: Instagram Story.
On a personal level, participation in the challenge early on in the school year allowed us to begin collaborating as a team and bonding as sisters while working to combat climate change and inform our peers.
We decided to focus on a different environmental issue per week during our month-long plan of action. During the first week the strategy we employed was infographics. We developed our seasoned Did-You-Know campaign to create and share social media content throughout the week and culminate with a Tik Tok on our Action Friday. We followed this plan throughout the month. During week two of the campaign, we created QR codes and posted them around campus showing teaching our peers how to upcycle their clothes and ending the week with our Action Friday: Clothes Swap. Week three focused on waste management Instagram Stories and culminated with our Action Friday DIY Flower Pot lunch activity. The final week was our most difficult week, environmental racism. We decided to simply begin having discussions about environmental racism and culminated with Instagram Stories.
Our goal was to spread awareness and attempt to initiate change in our peers while typing to help sustain our environment within our community. We aimed to inform our peers about environmental issues we can tackle by hosting interactive events throughout the month, culminating with our action Friday events. Our Action Friday events include: Did-You-Know: Tik Tok; Fast Fashion: Clothes Swap; Waste Management: DIY Flower Pot; Environmental Justice: Instagram Story.
On a personal level, participation in the challenge early on in the school year allowed us to begin collaborating as a team and bonding as sisters while working to combat climate change and inform our peers.
Participating Teams
Boyle Heights STEM Magnet High School
Compton Early College High School
Dr. Julian Nava Learning Academy
Dr. Maya Angelou Community High School
Foshay Learning Center
Girls Academic Leadership Academy
Granada Hills Charter High School
Griffith STEAM Magnet Middle School
James A. Garfield Senior High School
John Marshall High School
John R. Wooden High School
King/Drew Magnet High School
Knight High School
LA Promise Charter High School
LA Promise Charter Middle School
Larchmont Charter School
Maclay Middle School
Manual Arts High School
Manuel Dominguez High School
Nava College Preparatory Academy
North Oconee High School
Palmdale Learning Plaza
Patchogue-Medford High School
Public Service Community School at Diego Rivera Learning Complex
Pulaski Heights Middle School
Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts
Robert E. Peary Middle School
Rudecinda Sepulveda Dodson HA/Gifted Magnet Middle School
STEM Academy of Hollywood
Students On the Academic Rise (SOAR) High School
Sylmar Charter High School
Volunteers of America TRIO Programs
West Adams Preparatory High School
William Workman High School
Compton Early College High School
Dr. Julian Nava Learning Academy
Dr. Maya Angelou Community High School
Foshay Learning Center
Girls Academic Leadership Academy
Granada Hills Charter High School
Griffith STEAM Magnet Middle School
James A. Garfield Senior High School
John Marshall High School
John R. Wooden High School
King/Drew Magnet High School
Knight High School
LA Promise Charter High School
LA Promise Charter Middle School
Larchmont Charter School
Maclay Middle School
Manual Arts High School
Manuel Dominguez High School
Nava College Preparatory Academy
North Oconee High School
Palmdale Learning Plaza
Patchogue-Medford High School
Public Service Community School at Diego Rivera Learning Complex
Pulaski Heights Middle School
Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts
Robert E. Peary Middle School
Rudecinda Sepulveda Dodson HA/Gifted Magnet Middle School
STEM Academy of Hollywood
Students On the Academic Rise (SOAR) High School
Sylmar Charter High School
Volunteers of America TRIO Programs
West Adams Preparatory High School
William Workman High School