Friday, July 29, 2016

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle!

These last two weeks, our class took on a special mission of reducing, reusing, and recycling.

We first celebrated New Book Day, which is always one of our favorite days 
(second only to New Toys Day)...

and we talked a little bit about trash, watching a short clip about San Diego's landfill.

Then, we conducted some preliminary research...

and wrote about what we learned.

We also had small group discussions...

...about our newfound knowledge, and what we would like to learn in the upcoming unit.

Armed with knowing what we still needed to learn, we continued our research.  We consulted with our main man, Mr. Salvador, about how much trash is thrown away each day at Sacred Heart.

We also collected some of our trash during one lunch and carefully classified them.

This made things a little clearer.  There is certainly a problem.

Isolating the issues, we decided to reduce, reuse and recycle.  Then, we were driven by the question, "As the outgoing KinderPrep class, how can we teach the whole school to reduce, reuse, and recycle?" 


We got right to work.  Because we've been going through so much paper, we thought we could give using whiteboards a try in effort to reduce our demand.

We also realized that we have too many sandwich bags and concluded that bento-style lunchboxes and reuseable containers are a good way to reduce the amount of ziplocks.  

We decided that we wanted to reuse materials.  So, we had a fun day of designing two robots made completely out of trash.
Meet Bob.

And Dumbo.

Next, as we cleared our garden box for my 2016-17 class, we thought we could maybe reuse the green waste...

...to begin Sacred Heart's first ever composting project.  With, of course, worms.

Then, we were ready to get serious about recycling.

As our final act, we presented everything we have been learning to the younger children of 
Sacred Heart. 

Just our way of passing down knowledge, from one grade to another, and leaving our KP legacy.

Afterwards, we reflected on our experiences.

We are now a recycling school.  Mission accomplished!

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