A team of Mars Area Middle School students earned third place in the Phipps Conservatory & Botanical Gardens Fairchild Challenge’s Middle School Challenge #2.

The contest asked students to create an original six-panel comic strip that brings awareness to an environmental issue affecting Western Pennsylvania. Participants were asked to research an issue, identify a realistic solution, and design an original superhero character built to address the problem.

Eighth-grader Olivia Airgood and seventh-graders Everly Henderson, Emma Johnston and Mary Rhenish were recognized for their entry “Wings of Peril,” which discussed the negative impact of white-nose syndrome on local bat populations.

Phipps Conservatory’s annual Fairchild Challenge is a free, multidisciplinary, standards-based environmental education outreach program designed to encourage students’ innate sense of curiosity about the world around them. The program empowers students to engage in civic life and to become energetic and knowledgeable members of their communities.

For more information, visit https://www.phipps.conservatory.org/blog/detail/2024-2025-fairchild-challenge-at-phipps-challenge-2-winners-announced.