For just $50, Edison High students find ways to feed and power the world

For one evening each school year, Edison High School’s gym turns into a miniature version of Disney’s Epcot theme park in Florida.

Unique handmade exhibits and costumes based on 45 nations were on display May 21 during the Huntington Beach school’s eighth annual World Exposition, a geography project designed to demonstrate what freshmen have learned about countries they studied.

The approximately 350 students are enrolled in world geography honors courses or in the school’s Center for International Business and Communications Studies or Model United Nations programs. They were graded in several categories, including the country’s culture, history, festivities and clothing.

This year, students were given the themes “Feeding the Planet” or “Energy for Life,” in which they had to figure out how to feed themselves and others or how to be energy-efficient, said Josh Bammer, an Edison social-studies teacher who started the exposition in 2008.

“Here at Edison High School, it’s all about competition,” Bammer said as he pointed to dozens of championship sports banners in the gym. “It’s pushing them to the challenge and rising to the test.”

Many of the groups went the extra yard with their displays: Some created sculptures out of plastic bottles or built booths from wooden fences. At the Ethiopia pavilion, student Trent Bowman and his group constructed a hut from wooden pallets donated by The Home Depot.

“We used pallets because they get thrown away every year and in Ethiopia, they don’t want to throw away everything,” he said. “The top is made from corrugated metal, which helps with water runoff during the wet season.”

Bammer said the students are given a $50 limit to buy items for their projects, which encourages them to find and use recycled items and prevents parents from paying for their children’s assignments.

“They need to do what they can the best that they can,” he said.

To demonstrate the Feeding the Planet theme, student Jeff West, Trent’s colleague, built a cooking device from an old satellite dish. The mirror-lined dish concentrates the sun’s rays toward the bottom of a pan where food can be cooked. To prove it worked, the group showed a video of members cooking an egg with the device.

“We can rotate the dish around so we can angle it perfectly toward the sun so we can cook during any time of the day,” Jeff said.

At the Vietnam pavilion, made from bamboo stalks and fishing nets, student Vincent Tseng and his group devised an aquaponic system including a fish bowl, a water pump, a potted plant and a goldfish.

Vincent said waste produced by the fish is pumped to the soil to water and fertilize the plant. The plant removes the ammonia in the waste, and the filtered water trickles back to the bowl.

“These plants grow about four to six times as fast and is more efficient than regular, soil-based planting,” he said.

Trent, Jeff and Vincent said they didn’t view the project as just another assignment.

Vincent said it enabled him to get to know his friends better and to discover a new culture.

“I’m Chinese, but I have a lot of Vietnamese friends,” he said. “So during the project, I learned quite a bit about Vietnam.”

Trent and Jeff, who are in the Center for International Business and Communications Studies program, said the project taught them how to work better with others.

“This has been our longest project,” Jeff said. “It really teaches you how to work with someone for a long amount of time without getting annoyed with them if they’re not doing their share. But we all helped a lot and we did the project by ourselves, so I’m pretty proud we were able to complete this.”