As the saying goes, the kids are alright. Especially the five Renton elementary school and middle schoolers who recently hosted a “Kids Save The Earth” event, highlighting their ideas, prototypes and models that could help save the planet.

Put on by Milla Fishler, 10, the event participants includes Callie Graham, 11, Dinaaz Sahota and Neha Ram — both 10 — and Neha’s younger brother Rohit Ram, 6. The event was a two-parter, with part one being a Zoom call where ideas were brainstormed and part two was the presentation of their ideas on Sept. 1.

“The kids enjoyed sharing their ideas with each other and it made them feel like they are more powerful to help the earth because they can work together on it,” said Julia Fishler, a senior software engineer at Microsoft and Milla’s mom.

During a sit-down interview with the Renton Reporter, Milla said her presentation focused on palm oil, showing a model of the world with information on unethically-sourced palm oil.

She also created cards that she gave out to a Renton QFC manager in Renton to place on the shelves of items that contain ethically-sourced palm oil.

“Palm oil is super harmful,” Milla said.

Neha and Rohit showed a model they created which showed a robot that picks up litter from the street.

“If it picks up trash, then there will be less trash going out to the sea,” said Neha.

Dinaaz — who was traveling out of the country during the interview — presented a model of a drone that captures invasive animals in the wild.

“It’s good to get invasive species but I don’t hate any invasive species,” said Neha, to which Milla replied, “Yeah, it’s not their fault.”

Callie’s idea to save the earth was the most complex. Her idea was to use a special filter and the elodea plant to get rid of carbon emissions caused by gas vehicles.

“This could help hold off climate change since there are people who want to keep driving existent gas cars,” said Callie, who advocates for electric vehicles.

Her prototype is of a special filter designed to catch carbon emissions, which would be secured onto a car’s exhaust pipe before a day’s worth of driving and then, at the end of the day, the filter would be placed into a “special case of water with the chemical bromothymol blue.” The bromothymol blue would then turn the water yellow if the filter is filled with carbon.

Callie explains that, once the water turns yellow, elodea would be added to it and, through photosynthesis, it could convert the carbon dioxide to oxygen, preventing carbon dioxide produced by gas vehicles to enter the atmosphere.

“I hope it will inspire people to take action,” said Callie.

During the interview, when asked how they all got started with wanting to save the planet, Callie, Milla, Neha and Rohit all said in unison, “Robotics club!”

When Callie, Dinaaz, Milla and Neha were in first and second grade at Maplewood Heights Elementary, they all decided to start their own robotics club.

The club meets every Tuesday and Sunday and, as younger kids, like Rohit, became interested in science similar to the girls, they created their own junior robotics club. The name may still be undecided: They call themselves the Yellow Giraffes, Rohit said, while the senior club members said that they’re the Rockin’ Robots.

“We’ve been doing robotics club for three to four years,” said Neha.

After the Kids Save The Earth event, Milla created a website to commemorate their hard work and their hopes for the future.

As Milla wrote on her site, “I started this event because I care about the environment. I know that the only way to save the planet from being destroyed by climate change is to get this generation of kids involved. Kids have the best ideas, and if we band together, we can fix all the problems the adults caused. KID POWER!!!”

So, what advice does this brilliant group of innovative kids have for the adults reading about their ideas to save their futures? To start, turn off the lights, don’t leave the water on, take short showers.

“Be aware of the things you’re buying,” said Callie. “Buy things in bulk.”

Milla said, “anyone can help the environment,” with Neha and Callie adding, “You just need motivation.”

Photo by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing. Milla’s model from the event shows her campaign to raise awareness about palm oil.

Photo by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing. Milla, Callie, Neha and Rohit are part of their own robotics clubs that meet twice a week. The three older girls are part of the original club — called the “Rockin’ Robots” — while Rohit is part of the “Yellow Giraffes”, a junior robotics club.

Photo by Bailey Jo Josie/Sound Publishing. The kids gather around to see if the PalmOil Scan app will show that their snack is filled with ethically-sourced palm oil.