Redmond High School (RHS) senior Rachel Nakanishi is one of 29 students nationwide to receive a grant for an environmental project from the National Environmental Education Foundation, in partnership with The Weather Channel.

The grant program is tied to the launch of a new social networking site, Planet Connect (www.planet-connect.org), where teens can find information about environmental clubs and activities.

Nakanishi heard about the program from the award-winning RHS science teacher Mike Town, whose students have implemented energy-saving and waste-reduction tactics at their own school and throughout the Lake Washington School District.

Nakanishi works at the Starbucks store in the Bear Creek Plaza, “where we recycle behind the counter, but I thought it would be possible to involve customers in reducing waste, too,” she explained.

She’s calling her environmental project “The 1,000 Cup Challenge” and will encourage customers to take advantage of a discount when they choose a reusable beverage container instead of disposable cups.

She’ll keep track of the number of cups saved, create posters explaining how this helps to reduce global climate change and will also institute a compost bin to collect food waste.

Nakanishi believes customers will embrace these measures if she can help to educate them about the far-reaching results of their actions.

“Hopefully, this endeavor will help establish the connection between simple behavioral changes and global climate change,” she noted. “It is important not only because it adversely affects the environment and the world’s biodiversity but also because it is an extremely personal issue. Food-growing regions will shift as weather patterns change, creating political and economic issues. Human health will be impacted as air quality declines. Energy conservation will decrease dependence on foreign nations for oil, as well as slowing the progression of global climate change.”

Meanwhile, Nakanishi added, “From a business perspective, the hope is that those who support the issue will support the store, proving that action against global climate change is a worthwhile cause.”

Once she has created the pilot program at the Bear Creek Starbucks, she hopes that other locations will follow suit.

“Doing it at one store gives me a way to deal with all the problems and take out all the little kinks,” she said.

According to Diane Wood, president of the National Environmental Education Foundation, the Planet Connect grant winners were selected because of their innovative ideas to solve environmental problems.

“The Planet Connect grants and Web site will give teens a chance to identify, publicize and tackle the problems they see every day,” said Wood.

Nakanishi plans to pursue a career in a medical or environmental science field.