High School Grand Prize-winning team "Second Chance Band"

In the Lexus Eco Challenge, middle school and high school students are given the opportunity to take charge, learn about the environment, and take action to improve the world around them. This educational program and contest inspires teens to define an environmental issue that's important to them, develop a plan of addressing that issue, implement the plan, and then finally report the results.  

Lexus worked with Scholastic to pick one high school and one middle school Grand Prize-winning team, which were each awarded $30,000. The prize was split between scholarships for the students and grants for the school and the teams' teacher advisors. Learn a little more about each Grand Prize winner below.  

High School Grand Prize Winner

Team Name: "Second Chance Band"

School Name & Location: Lebanon Trail High School in Frisco, Texas

These students made a worldwide impact when they started a unique “upcycling” project using trash to create musical instruments, which they then sent to areas in need around the world, from Latin America to the Middle East. The students visited landfills to find all the materials they needed, including old instruments such as flutes, violins, guitars, trumpets, and more. Along with making over 75 unique, handmade instruments, the students educated the community on landfill stress and showed the importance of recycling and upcycling.  

Middle School Grand Prize Winner

Team Name: "WMS Coral Keepers"

School Name & Location: Whitehall Middle School in Whitehall, Michigan

These middle school students were concerned over the amount of plastic drinking straws discarded in the U.S. that end up in lakes, rivers, and oceans. They discovered that over 500 million straws are used in the U.S. every day, and that they are nonbiodegradable—resulting in birds, fish, and other marine animals breaking them into small bits and eating them. The students took action to combat this issue by eliminating plastic straws from their school, collaborating with local restaurants to also reduce plastic straw usage, and petitioning for a "National Skip the Straw Day" on the fourth Friday of February every year.    

This year's Lexus Eco Challenge had over 1,700 student participants, and the competition was fierce. 3Birds Template congratulates the Grand Prize winners for all their hard work and knows that these environmentally-conscious students will continue to make an impact in the future.