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Students learn by scrapbooking
By DENISE DICK
denise_dick@vindy.com
POLAND
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Poland North Elementary fourth graders Paige Kellgren and Julian Diaz, both 10, look over their recycling-themed scrapbook. The scrapbook is part of the school’s submission to the Disney’s Planet Challenge contest.
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Fourth-graders at Poland North Elementary School created a recycling-themed scrapbook for Disney’s Planet Challenge. The contest was developed by the Walt Disney Company in collaboration with the National Science Teachers Association and WestEd: K-12 Alliance.
Students at Poland North Elementary School are greening up the community.
The roughly 40 children completed a scrapbook as part of the Disney Planet Challenge, a program designed to teach them about science, team work and conservation.
“The grand prize is a trip to Disneyland,” Principal Michael Masucci said last week.
But the school is focusing more on what the kids can learn, he said. Poland North students decided to focus on recycling.
Teachers Karen Vasko and Tracey Kaschak said the scrapbook documents the students’ environmental efforts that started last October.
“It made them so much more aware of their actions,” Kaschak said, referring to recycling or a lack of it.
The children distributed reusable coffee mugs at Dunkin Donuts, collected telephone books to recycle, visited the Mahoning Landfill in Springfield Township and instructed their neighbors about recycling. Peg Flynn from the Recycling and Reuse Division of Mahoning County, also called the Green Team, taught the students about all of the items that can be recycled.
“I didn’t know cereal boxes could be recycled,” said Julian Diaz, 10.
Now that he does, the recycling bin picked up at his home is even fuller.
Paige Kellgren, 10, learned that glass jars could also be recycled.
“We have a bunch of different bins that we take to the recycling center when they get full,” Paige said of her family.
Nick Miller, 10, said he and other students collected greeting cards for recycling.
“If they had writing on them, we folded them and ripped the part off that had the writing,” Nick said.
Those cards were sent to St. Jude’s Ranch for Children in Nevada, where they were recycled, Kaschak said.
Like her classmate, Marlie Kluchar, 9, also learned that cereal boxes were a recyclable item.
“I thought you were supposed to put them in the trash,” Marlie said.
Her family already has recycle bins that it fills. “When we have parties, people drink a lot of pop,” she said, adding that those cans get recycled too.
The scrapbooks include photographs of the students’ activities and how they fit with academic standards.
Kaschak said the students applied what they learned about recycling to their lives outside the classroom too.
“One student, Ben Walsh, noticed that his grandmother’s preschool wasn’t recycling their scrap paper,” the teacher said. “He asked his grandmother if he could start recycling the scrap paper.”
The grandmother agreed, and the program continues, Kaschak said.