Here's how we're taking action in our community:
We will use some of the money we earned by bringing recyclables in and collecting them from our classroom as well to purchase red noses from Wal-Mart to promote awareness for child poverty. We will donate the rest of the money to the same cause.
Here's how we got the idea:
We voted as a class on what we would like to donate our recyclable money to. The class chose to donate it to the poor. I heard about Red Nose Day on the radio and thought it would be a good way to bring awareness to the cause and make it a memorable event for my students, as well as, be a good cause to donate to.
These are the steps we took:
I asked the students to bring in recyclables from home, as well as, recycle any plastic bottles from the classroom. A parent from my room would take the recyclables in each week and we collected the money all year long.
Here are some of the results:
Students saw the small amounts we collected each week because plastic bottles don't earn a lot of money. However, when they heard we had collected $100.00 they were surprised at how all of those little amounts added up.
One of the coolest things that happened during my project was:
Listening to the ideas the students came up with to donate the money to. They first thought of the special education classes at our own school, but when we asked them they couldn't come up with anything they needed. Other ideas were for the army, animal shelter, to begin a school wide recycling program, and to donate to kids with cancer. I was really proud of them for thinking of others around them.
One of the most important things I learned was:
It takes a lot of plastic bottles to raise $100, but when we work together it can make a difference.