recycling in the school

[ConnorsMommy521]

I helped get started a recycling program in my school. When I was in middle school, my school had a recycling program.  I was the white box monitor-that was in 1990.   After watching year after year hundreds and hundreds pounts of paper being thrown out in my currant school -it was time to get something done.  Children needed to take ownership of how they affect the earth and deal with how to mend it.  So here are some of the things that I did in my classroom and school..... 

I didn't really have to do much to get the kids started.  We just contacted a recycling company in town and they gave us the bins.  I was surprised how excited they were about it.  We also did a unit on recycling and one of the things that worked best was a) counting the trash bags- The students counted how many classrooms there were and calculated how much trash was genereted in one day, week, month, year.  This hit home and the realized that it actuallly does go somewhere and it totally adds up.  B) I had items that would usually be trashed and we repurposed them (tin cans, boxes, plastic containers....)  They love making and doing stuff.

c) I have also started a compost pile and bin.  We are just waiting to get started on the actual composting -I asked for donations from walmart for some supplies.  I think the fact that they will be outside making it and turning it is the motivation-heck they just want to get out of the classroom.   We planted some flower seeds to plant in the school and if all goes well, we will make a garden on school grounds using te compost we make and the flowers that we planted. 

Kids love making posters ( I called it an awareness campaign) and showing their stuff for the school.   Since I am a science teacher, I have to have the students do atleast one type of writing assignment for their writing portfolio, I had them write a pursuasive essay on why it is important to recycle in our community.  There is a lot of math that can be incorporated into it with the amount of waste and charts and polls and graphs........

The kids were all for this and they seems to take importance on it.  My principal had no problems with any of the things that we were doing and I didn't hear anything from any of the teachers about having to have bins in their rooms.

If anybody has any other thoughts to this please add.  I would love to hear other ideas on how recycling is done not only in homes, but also in schools and companies. If you want to get this started in your school-contact the town/city recycling place.  Students will think it is important if YOU think it is important.   

 

-JAIME 

[chudyschick1251]

Mar. 1, 2008 at 2:17 PM THAT IS AWSOME, I MUST SAY YOU SOUND LIKE A WONDERFUL TEACHER, AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM COULD USE A LOT MORE LIKE YOU, I WOULD HAVE LOVED HAVING A TEACHER AS CREATIVE AS YOU, THOSE  CHILDREN WILL REMEMBER YOU FOREVER, AND GO ON TO ONEDAY TELL THER'RE CHILDREN, SOOO GO GURL!!!!!!!

[ChristyIrishEye]

May. 19, 2008 at 3:28 AM THAT IS AWESOME!!!