BATON ROUGE -  East Baton Rouge Parish students are turning trash into tech and sending it down the Mississippi River one tracker at a time.

"It’s a big problem that needs to be solved," one student said about the frequent trash on the roads and in the rivers across Baton Rouge.

Vibriyogn Epuri is a general information systems instructor for the Global Geospatial Institute in Baton Rouge and said the idea for the program, "Life of Litter," came from frequent questions people had about what are the benefits of not littering.

“What happens to the litter after you throw it away or after you don’t recycle?” Epuri asked. 

The students from four middle schools want to know the answers. By throwing four different trackers into the Mississippi River, students can see where litter flows and even monitor it from their phones.

Organizer Fran Harvey says that students in the project are doing important work to make Louisiana cleaner.

“We’re trying to bring litter awareness, environmental awareness, and education to the students," Harvey said.

Students from the Eva Legard Learning Center for Coastal and Environmental Studies, Park Forest Creative Sciences and Arts Magnet Elementary School and Jefferson Terrace Academy participated in the launch after their field trip to the LSU Center for River Studies.

This initiative, led by the Global Geospatial Institute, utilizes Esri's ArcGIS Online to teach students about geographic information systems and their application in environmental studies.

Seventh grader Destiny Mondola said she's happy to do her part.

“I think it is important to use the trackers that we came up with cause it collects like data or where litter can go and like places it travels too," she said.

Mondola said the information she and other students collect can help strategize how to stop littering and create a plan to keep the area clean. But for the Global Geospatial Institute hope this experience introduces students to future career opportunities. 

“Middle schools are a sweet spot when students are starting to think about what career they want. And GIS Can be applied to most any career on a global scale," Harvey said.