More to come!

On April 29th / 2014, we are still working on our project. It hasn´t been so easy, guys! Many things have obligated us to put in practice what we have learned about research and group working. Our first sign with recycled bottles will be build, with our participation, on May 2014! After that, we will be evaluating this experience, and making recommendations for future implementation of the proposed alternative. Our idea is to continue doing this, in our school and the Santa Ana community.

More to come! Thanks for following us!

barbacoasbilingual@gmail.com

This is the chosen place to build our first sign, made with recycled bottles

Hope to start as soon as possible! We are very excited 
to see it!

"Barbacoas Bilingual Focus Team" Research Group, showing the site (located at the main entrance of the school). From left to right: Soledad Buelvas, Richard Barcasnegra, Jorge Quiroga, Erenelis Camargo, Merlis Torres and Yusneidis Guerrero).

Second Step - Picking Plastic Bottles at Playa Blanca and Santa Ana

From February to April, the members of BBFT Research Group have been picking up the bottles we need for our sign building (1500 large and 630 small bottles!), at Playa Blanca and Santa Ana.

What is happening in our community?

Some garbage in a private lot at Santa Ana.

Garbage in a wetland at Santa Ana.

A lot of people in Barú Island (natives and tourists) make garbage with plastic bottles, and it is seen in many places. At Barbacoas, which is an ecological school, there are no proper signs that helps visitors and others to locate inside the campus . The Barbacoas Bilingual Focus Team Research Group decided to use these bottles to build the signs, starting with an institucional one.  After that, we will evaluate this use as an alternative  eco-construction, and its  socialization using QR barcodes.

Final Draft of the Design

Our Final Draft for our First Recycled Institutional Sign

We want to share with you our final draft for our first recycled institutional sign, made with plastic bottles (PET # 1). We decided to use PET # 1 (polyethylene terephtalate) because it is easier to recycle.

Here you can observe our final draft:

*Special thanks to our friend Daniel Makouske (architect).

Bibliography

Bennaton, A. Reciclando plástico…construimos! Revista Ecohabitar. No. 19. 2008. URL:
http://www.ecohabitar.org/reciclando-plastico-construimos/

Kusimwiragi, K. (2011). Investigating the compressive strength of plastic bottles as masonry. Tesis de Grado. Uganda Martys University. URL: http://www.eco-tecnologia.com/portal/download

Ruiz, D., López, C., Cortes, E., Froese, A. (2012). Nueva alternativa de construcción: Botellas PET con relleno de tierra. En: Apuntes 25 (2): 292 - 303. URL:
http://revistas.javeriana.edu.co/sitio/apuntes/file.php?table=articulos&field=pdf&id=317&PHPSESSID=7193d8aa800f3c3bff1b448c72c0c92a.

Ondas Poster Materials

Main and Partial Goals

Our Goals

MAIN GOAL: reuse of recycled plastic bottles (PET # 1), as an alternative for construction signs at Instituto Ecológico Barbacoas, and directed by intelligent barcodes to the Internet for socializing its technical information.

PARTIAL GOALS: 1) Students training about alternative construction. 2) Collection and classification of PET bottles 3) Choosing building materials to implement the proposed alternative. 4. Design of sign plans. 5) Evaluation experience, with the joint participation of the community and the group and recommendations for future implementation of the proposed alternative.

Justification

Working on our Project

A lot of people in Barú Island (natives and tourists) make garbage with plastic bottles, and it is seen in many places. At Barbacoas, which is an ecological school, there are no proper signs that helps visitors and others to locate inside the campus . The Barbacoas Bilingual Focus Team Research Group decided to use these bottles to build the signs, starting with an institucional one.  After that, we will evaluate this use as an alternative  eco-construction, and its  socialization using QR barcodes.

First Step

Our School and The Problem

Santa Ana (Barú Island). Taken from: Google Maps.

The Instituto Ecológico Barbacoas is located in the town of Santa Ana on Barú Island, 50 minutes from Ceballos, in Cartagena. Here, we noticed two problems: first, that the community is littered with plastic bottles; second, that our school lacks a proper sign. In our project, we are attempting to use each problem to solve the other. The main question is: "Is the use of recyclable plastic bottles an alternative for building signs in the IEB, and socialize on the Internet through smart barcodes?"

About Us.

Barbacoas Bilingual Focus Team

"Learning English from different sciences"

 From left to right: Soledad Buelvas, Richard Barcasnegra, Jorge Quiroga, Erenelis Camargo, 
Merlis Torres and Yusneidis Guerrero.

"Barbacoas Bilingual Focus Team" is a research group oriented by Foreign Languages Department, at Fundación Educativa Instituto Ecológico Barbacoas. We started activities on 2013, learning how to strength practical English learning in 9th and 10th grade students (our classmates) who worked at Playa Blanca, and showed a strong disinterest in learning English in class.

For this year, the group is led by five students. Soledad Buelvas, Erenelis Camargo, Yusneidis Guerrero, Richard Barcasnegra and Jorge Quiroga have been thinking how to control, in some way, one of the biggest ecological problems in Barú Island: the littered with plastic bottles. They decided, with the support of their English teachers, to use bottles for building a proper sign for Barbacoas, which lacks a proper one (an ecological sign), and the socialization of this idea through Internet using a blog and a smartphone QR code, to access to this information.