Here's how we're taking action in our community:
We are collecting loose change from students at school to help the anti-poaching rangers in their efforts to save the elephants.
Here's how we got the idea:
Aidan and I were reading a book together during Reading Round Up in class. The book was about how elephants are being targeted for their ivory. Elephants are dying at an increasing rate. We decided that we needed to do something to help them. So Aidan and I came up with this Ripple Kid project.
These are the steps we took:
Aidan and I met at lunch to talk about what we wanted to do. Once we had a general idea, we met with our principal to tell her about our idea. Then we talked to our parents to see if they could help us. My mom went on the Ripple Kids website and got ideas about how we could get started. She filled out a form and we handed it to our principal to let her know the steps were were going to take. Once we got approval from our principal, we started working on the project. Aidan and his family made all the posters to hang around the school to let everyone know what we were doing and to remind them to bring loose change. Then my family and I made elephant jars to put in each classroom. Aidan and I met several times during recess and lunch to go over the speech we were going to give at the Friday assembly to let everyone know about our Ripple Kids project. Then on September 16th we gave our speech and educated everyone about how these innocent animals are being targeted and killed. We asked our principal if she could put us on the Friday Newsletter to advertise our cause. We went around every Friday to collect the money in the jars. We are sending the money to The International Anti-Poaching Foundation in Australia with a letter telling them about our project.
Here are some of the results:
We had 19 elephant jars in different classrooms and we raised over $315. This will put an anti-poaching ranger on the front lines for 3 months.
These are the people who volunteered with me:
My friends, My family
One of the coolest things that happened during my project was:
Getting in front of the school and telling everyone about how poachers are killing elephants and that we needed to help them. Working with Aidan. Getting positive feedback from everyone.
One of the most important things I learned was:
That approximately 37,000 elephants die every year and if we dont do something to help them that they may become extinct by 2025. That it feels good to do something, to get involved and help.