It was a regular day for Ben Rattin volunteering at North Chicago Community Partners (NCCP)–an organization that offers an after school enrichment program for students in North Chicago–when he saw a special extracurricular science program the school had and noticed that there were no environmental science lessons offered in the program. This is when Rattin got the idea to teach the kids about the environment himself. 

After pitching his idea of teaching more environmental science topics to the director of the program at the school, he got it approved and started to teach these kids more about the environment around them. 

One major challenge was that most of the kids that Rattin was teaching were Spanish-speaking and had limited understanding of English. Fortunately, Rattin saw this challenge as an opportunity rather than a setback. 

“I had originally chosen this volunteer opportunity as a chance to get hours and practice my Spanish skills,” said Rattin. 

This meant that Rattin not only had to create lesson plans to teach the kids but also translate them into Spanish so they could understand. With the help of his Spanish teacher checking his grammar, he created a workable and interactive lesson for these kids. 

“AP Environmental Science helped me to better understand the world around me and be more conscious of the environment which fostered my interest in Environmental Science,” said Rattin.  

Rattin’s passion for the Environment may have started in the classroom, but he has continued to pursue it even outside of the classroom as he is starting a nonprofit that is doing promotion for local sustainable farms, teaching others about the environment, and is planning on majoring in environmental science in college. 

“I think it’s so cool that Ben is doing this,” said Rattin’s AP Environmental Science teacher Candice Kloss.