Knoxville 202 School Board Meeting

Hey Everyone,

Dylan here,

Last Monday, May 16th, Amanda, Kaylah, and I attended the final Knoxville School Board meeting of the year. Since it was the final meeting of the year, there was not a large turnout of parents, but I think we made a lasting impression on the board members.

The board members warmly welcomed us from the start and made us feel comfortable sharing our project. We introduced ourselves to the board members and shared both the content of our presentations and the information we distributed to Knoxville students.

We first explained how the project arose from our sustainability class and how we learned that sustainability and community values went hand in hand and how this led us to try and instill the idea of sustainability and community into elementary school children. None of us were exposed to the idea of sustainability in our own elementary school experiences, and we thought that young students would respond positively to the idea of sustainability. The idea that we are all connected to those things that give us life (we focused on water), and that we need to cherish, maintain, and conserve what gives us life.

Then we shared positive student reactions to our presentation as well as the Water Challenge Pyramid that we distributed to the students and their families.

We are grateful for the  support and openness of the board members who literally applauded our efforts.  Hopefully we will see environmental studies incorporated into their future curriculum.

Come to our final presentation!

The Put A Stop to the Drop group has completed all classroom visits for the project! We visited a total of 23 classrooms which is around 575 students!

We talked to 7 classes at Mable Woolsey, ranging from 1st to 3rd grade, 3 second grade classrooms at Silas Williard, one 2nd grade classroom at Steele Elementary, three 2nd grade, one 3rd grade, and one 4th grade classroom at Gale Elementary, three 2nd grade classes at King Elementary, one Kindergarten class at Cooke, and three 2nd grade classes at Nielson Elementary.

We've loved the smiling faces!

It has been a wonderful project. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting so many great students, teachers, principals, school board officials, and other community members.

We encourage anyone who is interested to attend our Sustainability Class Community Forum. We will be presenting our projects.

Please come and share your afterthoughts and results from our project! It will be Friday, May 27 at 1:20 PM – 3:00 PM in the Round Room at the Ford Center for Fine Arts at Knox College.  The address to Knox College is 2 E. South St. Galesburg, IL 61401.

Other students from our class will be sharing their findings and making recommendations on:
Orchard on Campus
An Alternative Dining Service Provider
The Future of Knox Energy
Water Conservation among Galesburg’s Youth- this is ours!
A Recycling Inventory

Hope you can make it!

Here’s a link to the map of campus:

Presentations are in the Round Room in the Ford Center for the Fine Arts. See you Friday!

Certificate and Video

During our visits to the classrooms, we gave each student a certificate like the one below.  It served as an art project and something they could take home with them to remember what they had learned.

Additionally, here is our video that we made as a visual aid to teach students two easy ways to save water! We focused on using tap water wisely when brushing your teeth and washing your hands. The students seemed to enjoy the clip!

Our Family Water Challenge

Hi all,

Hannah here.

This is the Family Water Challenge that we sent home with each and every (of the 575!) students we visited. Students were encouraged to share with their parents and families what they learned that day about water conservation. The pyramid is designed to stimulate small changes families can make, but we emphasized for families to work at their own pace. This is not meant to be dictatorial, but rather inspiring and exciting. Feel free to check it out!

As you progress down the pyramid some of the water saving techniques become slightly more difficult, but that is the idea of the challenge. We kept in mind our location of Galesburg and median income levels. There are web resources for further information on each of the steps.

The students seemed to really like these handouts!

This is the Water Challenge we distributed to all our students and teachers! Please comment and we can email you a copy of it!

Our last classroom at Mable Woolsey

Hi everyone,

It’s Kaylah here. On Thursday, May 19, 2011 we went to our last classroom at Mable Woolsey in Knoxville. We went to Mrs. Davis’ second grade class to do our presentation. This class really enjoyed our presentation and were willing to get involved by answering questions. We asked them why they should save water, and a few of the students had very good answers. After we gave or presentation about conserving water we handed the students a certificate for them to color. The students really enjoyed being able to color their certificate. We asked the class what a pledge is so that we could do their class pledge. One child raised his hand and said that a pledge is a promise, and another girl pointed to the American flag. We thought this was great that this class knew what a pledge was. Their class really wanted to do a pledge about washing their hands. On the big blue water droplet pledge that we leave for them to hang up in their classroom they decided to put, “Our class pledges to save water by not wasting water when washing our hands.” All of the students were willing to sign this pledge.

Wonderful Mable Woolsey where we spent great time visiting 7 classrooms.

We are sad that this was our last classroom at Mable Woolsey, but we are glad we were able to reach our to a great deal of children in Knoxville about water conservation. Thank you for all of your help. We greatly appreciate all of you allowing us to come to your classrooms to do our water conservation presentation. Thank you! 🙂

This photo was taken in the hallway of Mable Woolsey. It's so awesome to see children at such a young age already learning about carbon footprints!

Our Visit to Nielson Elementary

Carrie Danner helps Kindergarteners at Cooke Elementary School write their names on their certificates.

Today was our first trip to Nielson and our final trip of the project! Mr. Stecher was kind enough to organize our visit to not only his classroom but the classrooms of two other 2nd grade teachers at Nielson Elementary.

Our first stop was at Mrs. Bruns’ classroom.  The classroom was very receptive to our presentation and came up with many good ideas on other ways they can save water.  They decided that their automatic sinks were a good way of conserving water because the water couldn’t run while they weren’t using it, so their classroom decided pledged to not waste water at the drinking fountain.  The students seemed really excited to start their challenge of not wasting water and our time spent with them was way too short!

Miss Cavanah’s class was filled with very good listeners and very smart students. When asked if they knew of ways to save water and why we should save water, the students were eager to respond and provided some very good answers! Miss Cavanah’s class pledged to save water by not wasting water when using the water fountain and the sinks. The students loved having us visit, and one girl even made a bracelet for Kaylah!

Mr. Stecher’s class was very engaged as well! They really paid attention to our presentation and seemed to really like the Youtube videos. They were very inquisitive and asked us a lot of good questions. They also offered some personal anecdotes of their own about their experiences with water use. One girl reported that her younger sister left the water running at the sink while she brushed her teeth, and she made the promise to go home and teach her sister what she learned in class! Another girl wanted to know more about how she could read our blog or email us with questions. Mr. Stecher’s class also pledged to save water by not wasting water when using the water fountain and the sinks. This class was the last class for our presentation and they left us with a feeling of accomplishment – a good note to end on!

Thank you Nielson students and teachers for a great day and letting us visit your school!

Thanks for a great visit, Nielson!

Second Grade at King Elementary

Hi all,

Hannah here..

Today we had a great day seeing all 3 second grade classrooms at King Elementary. Mrs. Hinton graciously coordinated all three classrooms meeting in the art room. The students seem to enjoy the YouTube videos. After we completed our presentation we split into different classrooms to do our activities.

Hannah went into Mrs. Timmons’ classroom. Her students were wonderful listeners and very enthusiastic. They pledge to save water by using tap water and drinking fountains wisely. Hannah even got a hug from one of the girls! Some students had very creative colorings on their certificates.  A great classroom overall!

Amanda went into Mrs. Sparks’ classroom.  The students were very energetic and independent! Many of them talked to her their personal stories about brushing their teeth and what they had learned from the YouTube videos.  Their class pledges to use water wisely when washing their hands and at the drinking fountain.

Kaylah and Carrie went into Mrs. Hinton’s classroom.  The students were excellent listeners and had some interesting questions.Their class pledges to use faucets and water fountains wisely. Some of the students drew Kaylah and Carrie pictures to take home with them. They are precious!

More enthusiastic Kindergartners at Cooke Elementary on April 28. We have loved seeing the bright faces of the students!

We are winding down our visits. Thursday we visit our last 4 classrooms, one at Mable Woolsey and three at Neilson. It has been a wonderful project. We encourage anyone who is interested to attend our Sustainability class’ Community Exposition. We will be presenting our projects.

Please come and share your afterthoughts and results from our project! It will be Friday, May 27 at 1:30 PM – 3:00 PM in the Round Room at the Ford Center for Fine Arts at Knox College.  The address to Knox College is 2 E. South St. Galesburg, IL 61401.

Here’s a link to the map of campus:

Click to access Campus%20Map.pdf

Thanks! Hope to see you there!

Galesburg 205 School Board Meeting

This is Carrie speaking! I just wanted to share a little bit about how the Galesburg School Board meeting went. The meeting had a fairly large turnout, so Hannah and myself were a little anxious about speaking about the project in front of so many people. Turns out we had nothing to worry about!

When we were called to the podium everyone looked as if they were very interested in what we had to say. We introduced ourselves and our project in general. We let them know why we put together Put a Stop to the Drop and what we were doing in both Knoxville and Galesburg schools. We mentioned the fact that we were assigned this project, but decided to truly reach out beyond the Knox College bubble and into the surrounding communities.

We went over what we did in each classroom – that we taught kids about what the terms sustainability and ecological footprint meant, why saving water in particular is important, and what they could do as individuals to lessen their impact upon the environment through water conservation. We then explained to the school board what materials we brought to the classroom. We described the individual certificates as well as the classroom pledges, and then we went into more detail on the handout we provided each child. We explained the importance of reaching out not only to the kids, but to their parents.

We then went into why it is important to ensure that this young generation is environmentally literate, and why it is important that environmental curricula be instilled in Galesburg schools.

The school board and audience members seemed very receptive to our reasoning and ideas. Hopefully they will look into options for instilling environmental curricula into District 205 schools. Overall, it was a very good idea to attend the meeting and it left me and Hannah with a sense of accomplishment!

A Week at Mable Woolsey

Hey everyone!

It’s Amanda here…

Tuesday Kaylah and I had the opportunity to visit Mrs. Davies’ first grade classroom.  The first graders were very interested in our presentation and learned a lot about how they could save water at school.  Mrs. Davies is a great

Here is the water drop from Mrs. Bent's classroom!

teacher and she added in her own tidbits and stories along with our presentation.  It was great! The students were great listeners and one of our fastest groups at writing their names on their class water drop.

Thursday Carrie, Kaylah, and I visited the final two first grade classrooms at Knoxville.  They were Mrs. Bent’s and Mrs. Luptak’s classes.  Both classes were great participators and came up with some new ideas.  One girl and one boy brought up how much water we use when playing outside in the summer for pools and sprinklers.  It was great to see the students already applying their knew knowledge to something in their everyday life!

Here is the water drop from Mrs. Davies' classroom!

We have officially visited all four 1st grade classrooms and two third grade classrooms at Mable Woolsey Elementary.  We’d like to give a big thanks to the principal, Mr. Eastin, and all the teachers for letting us come visit!

Tuesday’s visit to Mrs. Estes’ Third Grade

Hello again!

Hannah here.. On Tuesday Carrie and I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting Mrs. Estes’ 3rd grade class at Mable Woolsey in Knoxville. The students are phenomenal! Before we gave our presentation we noticed lots of nature and conservation books, on display in front and center in the class. We guessed that the students would maybe know a lot about water already- and boy were we right!

Here are some of the books we saw…

How fun!

I read this as a kid, as well!How fun!

When we asked students how they can save water and before we suggested our ideas the bright kids raised their hands and explained methods they are already using to save water- and it was just what we were going to say! It was awesome. Theses students are turning off the water while brushing their teeth and washing their hands, as well as using tap water and not bottled water to drink. They are watering their plants during times when the sun is low, and being conscious about the tap water used when washing dishes. Also, students understood the implications of leaky facuets- and knew those were important to fix!

We had fun making the pledge, and the class decided to pledge to save water by using tap water and drinking fountains wisely.

And here’s another picture from a few weeks ago when we visited Cooke Elementary.

Jason Ponlano, left, and Kaidenes Wilson, right, color their certificate after a water conservation class put on by Knox College students. Kaylah Murphy, junior, is working with them.

And that is all for now!

We were off to Mable Woolsey again this morning, so look for a post about that soon!

Also, we attended the Galesburg C205 School Board meeting on Monday- it was great. We will post soon!

And we will be at Knoxville’s School Board meeting presenting our project this Monday. If you are interested, please come check it out!