Campus Voices
Lower School
When students are given the chance to use what they have learned in the classroom and apply it to the world around them, real learning takes place. From Upper School students at BB&N to our youngest students at the Lower School, serving our community brings us together and makes us stronger.
This fall, during our environmental unit, 42 fourth graders joined forces with fourth graders at The Park School and The Shady Hill School for the Tree-O Catalog Canceling Challenge. Our challenge was to cancel as many catalogs as possible by calling catalog companies or going online. This challenge was named by students to represent all three schools. The Catalog Challenge was originally created by fourth grade Park School teacher, Ted Wells. Bill Hritz and I, along with the support and encouragement of the math department, decided this would be a perfect project for our students. After contacting Drew MacKay at Shady Hill and Ted Wells at Park and proposing to them that we work together on this project, we were set to begin.
Students had learned about the perils that face our Earth and the importance of conserving energy, reducing waste, and reusing materials. They were already turning off lights, using less water, recycling, and bringing lunches that were waste-free by using cloth napkins, real utensils, and reusable containers. This may seem like enough, but they were doing all these things as individuals, and many of these activities were taking place at home. The Catalog Canceling Challenge gave our students a chance to work together as a team, ultimately showing them how powerful an individual’s efforts can be when combined with their classmates’ and peers’ efforts.
During November, students collected catalogs from their houses, as well as from neighbors’, relatives’, and teachers’ houses. They called the 1-800 number on the catalog or went to www.CatalogChoice.org to cancel online. From November 4 through December 4, 2008, BB&N students canceled 1,391 catalogs—well above our goal of 300! As a group, all three schools cancelled 4,323 catalogs. By doing this, we saved 55.4 trees, 51,876 gallons of water, and prevented 6,225 lbs of CO2 from entering our atmosphere.
The Tree-O CCC was enhanced in our classroom with Skype on our SmartBoards allowing us to video chat with students at Park. We asked them questions, offered suggestions, and shared our successes. In our math classes, we integrated the CCC with our study of measurement. We also wrote articles explaining what we were doing.
Each morning of the challenge, students arrived exclaiming how many catalogs they had canceled. Their eyes lit up as they saw our tree graphs (made of catalog scrap paper) grow up to the ceiling and across it to the other wall. They knew and felt that they were making a real difference in the health of our Earth. They felt good about helping out their families, neighbors, relatives, and teachers who didn’t have the time to cancel the catalogs themselves. They were inspired by the work of students just like themselves at neighboring schools. By combining knowledge with action, this year’s fourth graders know that true success comes not just from learning, but from serving together.
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