It started with a problem, homelessness. The issue seemed too complex for just one girl to tackle, but a group of Bryn Mawr students knew that if they came together they could make a difference.
Last fall, Cynthia Somers ‘21, Sony Siddalingaiah ‘19, Riya Khosla ‘21, Reilly Kate Fitzmaurice ‘19 and Natalie Bunce ‘19 formed Bryn Mawr’s first Ethics in Action team. Under the direction of Upper School teachers Monia Cheikh and Jenniffer Gray, they partnered with the Kent Place School of Ethics to participate in the Ethics and Action Design Expo.

Ethics in Action provides an opportunity for high school students and their teachers to combine the study of ethics with the practice of design thinking. The goal is for participants to work together to create human-centered designs that tackle real challenges in local communities. “This was an opportunity to design something meaningful,” said Somers. “Anything we made had the potential to help people's lives.”

This year, the challenge was for teams to tackle the issue of homelessness. According to the Baltimore City Government, on any given night in Baltimore, approximately 30,000 people are homeless.To compete in the challenge, each team had to come up with an innovative way to solve an issue related to homelessness, while raising awareness. The innovation also needed to be a low-cost and high-impact product that could actually be implemented in a sustainable way.

The Bryn Mawr team spent five months researching the issue of homelessness. They spoke to representatives from local shelters, hosted Jaclyn Range, the executive director for Back on My Feet,and skyped with Connie Liu, a professor of invention for social good at the Nueva School in California. At the end of this process, the team identified access to clean and seasonal clothing as a key issue that people who are homeless face. “We also spent a fair amount of time discussing and learning about empathy vs. sympathy, ethical decision making, and examining the problems that occur when we rely on first impressions or fall back on stereotypes,” said Gray. At the end of this process, the team came up with project Clean4Clothes, a vending machine that could be placed around the city to  distribute clothing to those in need. Unlike a homeless shelter or clothing program, the machine would be available anytime, and would not require as many resources.

Clean4Clothes would also help to clean up the community. Unlike a traditional vending machine, the Clean4Clothes machine would accept trash instead of cash.  Local homeless shelters would distribute electronic wristbands to those who wanted to participate in the program. Then, participants could go out and collect trash from around the city, put it into the vending machine, and get credit on their wristband in exchange for the trash. They could then use their credit to get clean clothing from the machine.

Once their idea was approved by their faculty advisors, the team used the Bryn Mawr Innovation Lab to build a prototype for the Clean4Clothes vending machine. The students also incorporated coding skills they learned in Bryn Mawr’s Introduction to Computer Science course to design the wristbands.

In February, the Bryn Mawr team was one of 14 to participate in this year's Ethics in Action Design Expo in Summit, NJ.  While they did not win the top prize, they say this experience strengthened their passion for giving back and showed them how they could take the skills they’re learning at Bryn Mawr, and use them to solve real world problems.

“This program is a way to work with a team to create a solution. I was able to not only learn more about homelessness, but also, along with my teammates, to create an innovation that we strongly believe can make a difference,”said Khosla.
 
Banner: Bryn Mawr's Ethics in Action team stops for a picture on their way to the Kent Place School of Ethics Design Competition
It was wonderful to see their big hearts and kind personalities and how they came together as a team to face this challenge. - Faculty advisor Monia Cheikh
Located in Baltimore, Maryland, The Bryn Mawr School is a private all-girls pre-kindergarten, elementary, middle and high school with a coed preschool for ages 2 months through 5 years. Bryn Mawr provides students with exceptional educational opportunities on a beautiful 26-acre campus within the city limits. Inquisitive girls, excellent teaching, strong student-teacher relationships and a clear mission sustain our vibrant school community where girls always come first.