To display this page you need a browser with JavaScript support. National Policymakers invite Team "Dead Weight" to Washington DC

"If the public becomes more aware of the environmental dangers of
lead wheel weights and is given alternative wheel balancing choices then
there will be a decrease in lead entering the environment. It is
important that we make sure that the water we drink and the air we
breathe is free of lead." TEAM DEAD WEIGHT


National Policymakers invite Team "Dead Weight" to Washington DC
to Discuss National Lead Wheel Weight Ban
National Policymakers invite Team "Dead Weight" to Washington DC to Discuss National Lead Wheel Weight Ban - West Branch Times - West Branch, Iowa - westbranchtimes.com
Thursday, October 8, 2009
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DeadWeight gets an audience of U.S. Sec. of Education
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · October 07, 2009

Team DeadWeight continues to add to its A-list of high-ranking politicians and government bodies which have agreed to hear their research on the impact of lead wheel weights on the environment and their reasons for wanting to phase them out.


This week, the team of eighth-graders Justin Roth, Jathan Kron and Brennan Nelson are in Washington D.C. again, this time meeting with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, according to science instructor Hector Ibarra, who is escorting the team.

Roth and Kron, who attend West Branch Middle School, were recognized Friday at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum along with three other Science Club groups: The Backover Preventers, which researched vehicle backover injuries and deaths; Green Men Group, which focused on plastic grocery bags; and Wii-Habilitators, which used the popular gaming console to help the elderly regain motion and memory. Nelson, who attends Southeast Junior High, was unable to join them that day.

Library-Museum Director Tim Walch welcomed the science club members as well as other middle school pupils referencing Hoover’s famous “Uncommon Man” speech.

“If Mr. Hoover was here, he would be very proud of the work you have done,” he said.

Ibarra told the pupils that the decisions made today will affect their generation more than their parents.

“It is your world,” he said. “It is not our world.”

In all the years Ibarra’s pupils have entered competitions, they have won a total of $395,000 in prizes, mostly in savings bonds. In 2009, 18 of the young scientists won $81,000.

“You guys are potentially looking at the next Rhodes Scholars,” he said.

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http://www.westbranchtimes.com/article.php?id=4919



Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge 
Grand Prize Winning Team


 

The grand prize winning team from the inaugural year of the Siemens 
We Can Change the World Challenge, Team Dead Weight from West Branch, Iowa, 
met with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Dr. John P. Holdren, 
Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the 
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy on October 8, along 
with their teacher and mentor Hector Iberra, Siemens Foundation and 
Discovery Education executives. 



Team members , Brennan Nelson, Justin Roth and Jathan Kron, and their 
teacher, Hector Ibarra, also met with Senator Grassley while they were in 
Washington, D.C. The students discussed their research project which 
analyzes the replacement of lead wheel weights with steel wheel weights.


As a result of Science Team "Dead Weight"'s efforts and a May 2009 petition 
to the EPA by the Ecology Center, Sierra Club, CEH and other evironmental 
coalition groups, the Environmental Protection Agency recently 
announced that it would reverse its previous position and begin the process 
of writing rules to ban lead wheel weights in tires. In August the students 
presented their project about the environmental hazards of lead wheel 
weights in tires to an audience of New York area youth and UN 
representatives as part of the United Nations International Youth Day.


The students hope their work, and the national attention the project has 
garnered, will lead to a state ban of lead wheel weights. To date, four 
states — Washington, Vermont, Maine and California — have passed bills 
banning lead wheel weights.


SOURCES: http://www.siemens-foundation.org/en/


http://gazetteonline.com/local-news/2009/10/07/team-deadweight-in-nations-capital



           Science research team "Dead Weight" recognizes the 
need to protect the public from exposure to lead hazards. 
There are no federal regulatory controls governing use of lead 
wheel weights. Environmental health hazards associated with lead 
wheel weights are a preventable problem. People are exposed to 
lead fragments and dust when lead wheel weights fall from motor 
vehicles onto the nation's roadways and are then abraded and 
pulverized by traffic. Lead wheel weights on and alongside roadways 
can contribute to soil, surface and groundwater contamination and 
pose hazards to downstream aquatic life.
       Lead negatively affects every bodily system. While it is 
injurious to people of all ages, lead is especially harmful to 
fetuses,children, and adults of childbearing age. Effects of lead 
on a child's cognitive, behavioral, and developmental abilities may 
necessitate large expenditures of public funds for health care and 
special education. Irreversible damage to children and subsequent 
expenditures could be avoided if exposure to lead is reduced.

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