In my endless search for projects that involve both creating art and cleaning up our earth I have come across an idea; Have students collect items that would otherwise be thrown out (or better yet, sort through some trashcans) and transform them into something beautiful. Bellow is a picture of a lamp I made out of used Tim Horton's cups that were overflowing several garbage cans. Feel free to use this image as an exemplar for your students.
![]() "Architects and local governments around the world are now fighting the good fight against dismal, uninspiring schools and the groundbreaking results are re-shaping the learning experience for our future generations." - Claire Cottrell, Aug 20 202 When I read this post I felt as though Claire had perfectly put into words my personal feelings about the design of our public schools. After searching several beautiful, functional, and sustainable school designs my class and I decided to make some changes to our own school. So far the students have come up with the idea of building an outdoor classroom. Their designs are not yet complete but I am very excited to see what they create. We realized we will need some funding to back our designs and here is where I got really excited. I found online a Paper Log Maker (apparently many people know about these, but they were new to me). They are inexpensive (30$ - 60$) and using discarded paper, or cardboard, they create paper logs that burn as long and almost as hot as real wood logs. Our school has since ordered one of these log makers, and we are in the beginning stages of developing a sustainable fundraising project :) This Earth Day, my students and I stumbled upon David Suzuki's video 'Today is the day we decide.' This video was created by Mr. Suzuki in the hopes to gain some traction with his Blue Dot Movement. The idea behind this movement is to begin policy changes from the ground up. Suzuki challenges all of us to write letters to our municipal governments asking that -clean water, -clean air, -clean soil, and -clean food be written into legislation as a human right. Motivated by a fellow colleague, I decided to have my students write letters to our Mayor in Thompson, urging him to consider our mandate. Please watch Suzuki's video and join us!
Click on the link bellow to view David Suzuki's 'Today is the day we decide' video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D43PJOBLcJI |