Choosing to Participate:
A Social Justice Service Project on Sustainability

Today turned out really well in my opinion. I thought that all of the 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th graders learned a lot today about what sustainability means and what they can do to improve it. It was a great experience to teach the kids about what we’d been studying for so long. It’s the first time I’ve really felt like I could do something with my learning and help out the community by telling everyone about sustainability. I didn’t really think the day could’ve gone any better and I’m very pleased with the way everything went.

Today was finally the day of learning! I was really excited about my and Gaia’s workshop. I knew a lot of people had wanted to be in it, and I was looking forward to seeing who would there. The workshop started off a little rocky, because everyone wanted to do the same recipe, and we didn’t have enough of the ingredients for that many people to do it. However, we soon cleared it up, and people made several different recipes, in groups or pairs. Almost everything went well. It all looked good, worked, and smelled AMAZING. The rest of the day was interesting and fun. I especially liked the cake! I think the day went well in general, and I’m looking forward to seeing future days of learning.

Even though the day went pretty well. I could not stand some of the kids. Some of them were whiny and complainy and all that stuff. i do not know how you teachers can deal with us. we horrible! my GOD! well….. not anymore…..for some of us.

The day of learning was fun and worked out a lot better then I thought it would. The people in our workshop were respectful and paid attention when we were talking. All of our group members did what they were assigned and we had fun. I enjoyed hearing Josh talk about other schools and how they were sustainable. I also learned a lot about how much we waste and how we can recycle.

P.s I also enjoyed watching the short videos about sustainability.

From Aaron

what: 8th grade day of learning

where: LREI

When: April 30, 2008

Yesterday was reeeaaaallly tiresome. But it surprisingly went well. at first i was really nervous about the whole ‘teaching little children’ thing, but it wasn’t so bad……that is….until Henry, Aliza and I brought out the candy. That’s one thing that we learned that day, other than all those cool facts about sustainability, that you should NEVER take out 6 bags of open candy in front of 13 kids consisting of 5th and 6th graders. Our first workshop didn’t go very well. It was just really awkward and we weren’t that prepared for them. The second workshop however, went perfectly well. We were a lot more prepared for what was coming to us then we were the first time around. We collected a lot more materials by the second workshop time and we actually knew what to say and how to be more understandable. So it basically went pretty well if you count out the candy fiasco.

P.s- No matter what people say. I never want to teach ^-^”

P.s.s- I’m not saying it’s a bad job or anything. It’s just that I’m not that patient with kids.

WOW!!! I will never be a teacher. Some of the children from the 1st group were extremely uncooperative. Quinn, Cole, Robbie, and I were exhausted. We even had to throw one child out. The second group went better because we learned from our mistakes. We told them that they couldn’t eat the candy at all, but then we gave it to them at the end. Overall the day went well, i enjoyed myself and learned why teachers can be mean, Kids are horrible to teach. I am going to try hard not to give teachers a hard time with my conduct. The day really changed my views on things.

I was a little nervous about the day of learning, whether or not people would understand why we needed to reuse the starburst wrappers, whether people would understand how to make the bracelets and enjoy to workshop, however my thoughts were not at all justified. It turned out to be incredibly fun, and people were really starting to think about reusing materials and asking some interesting questions. Phil helped facilitate the conversations upon entering the room and quizzing us on how this was sustainable, when we bought the starburst instead of reusing ones we had already gotten. People started throwing around ideas and coming up with ways it both was, and wasn’t sustainable. I think it went very well and I was very relieved that all the hard work and speculation came out positively. 

The day of learning was a fulfilling fun day. It was very interesting learning about how hard it is to be a teacher. For me it was very easy and I was very prepared for my workshop. It was so fun to engage with the kids and show them your ideas. It is also a great feeling when people are interested in what you are doing and have prepared. As for the day, it was amazing for students taking action and i was intrigued by the speakers. I think it was a great experience for the younger kids because I think that they all really loved the workshops. I also thought that it is so so important to teach the younger students about how important this is because we all share the next generation. I loved how enlightened Josh was about all off this and he had, had hands-on experience with sustainability as we did and it made me feel more like an adult. I thought that the whole school was also very impressed with us and all off our knowledge and hard work about these topics. At the end of the day I was very proud (even though it felt like a Friday).

This past Saturday was Lili’s, Sam’s, Hannah’s and my last day working as a group at the farmers market. It made me sad that most people would totally quit doing sustainable community service after the Day of Learning. Even though I have known the farmers for my entire life, this experience has been unlike any other. The people who work with the Greenmarket really appreciated kids who actually cared about the community. They made us feel really needed, and after working there for four monthes, it feels so good to have helped these kind, hardworking farmers make their living. Working with Dave, Lynn, Karen, Liz, Davy and Emily I realized how special being able to really assist people is. I’ve learned so much from these farmers: about what it takes to have a farm, to have a family, and to work at the farmers market three times a week. The last few times I’ve gone to the farmers market I’ve worked with Dave, “the honey guy.” He owns Berkshire Berries. His stand sells all kinds of jams and jellies, maple syrup, wild flower honey, and even honey that is made in Manhattan! Throughout the past weeks i have seen his bees(they were so amazing), organized his extremely messy truck, made sales, and all together had a fabulous time chatting with him, laughing about crazy customers, and tasting everything. He really needed my help some days when he was selling by himself, and it made me really proud this past Saturday when he fell asleep in his truck and I ran the enitre stand for two hours. I really have learned so much during this project, and I hope to always have this important connection to the Greenmarket, and continue working there, if more sporadically.

I though that the day of learnin went well. I was in the solar shop with David and Nicholas. We started off by explaining what we would be dooing during this time and what solar enerrgy was. We then started to work on our solar cars. After every one was outside we tested our cars. We didn’t race them because at first the cars weren’t moving well outside. A little bit of the time was spent fixing the rubberbands on the car. The cars evebtually worked and we ran them outside. I felt that the teacher somwhat ran the program. I know that they were there in order to help us but I feel like he interupted more times than needed

In total, the day of learning was a sucess. It was very satisfying to see everybodys hard work come together in a way that was beneficial to the entire middle school. One thing I hope that will come out of the day of learning is people wanting to help the community, and actually understanding what it means to be sustainable. My group’s workshop went really well. It was interesting to see how our script changed for the better as we went along, and how much the people in our workshop effected the overall learning experience. I think that most people did learn something, and had fun eating the delicious fruit salad we had them make. It was also a good idea to have three people reflect at the end, because it was a way for the students to sum up what they had learned in their own words. The prize muffins were also delicious. One thing that could have gone differently was that we had too much fruit, and we hadnt predicted well whow much every kid would eat. Otherwise, everything was absolutely great.

My workshop went really well.  All the kids loved the bracelets and especially the candy!  We listened to music and it was a really relaxed environment.  The teachers who supervised our workshop also loved making the bracelets.  It also pleased them that we were playing appropriate music that was from their era…

Today was the day of learning!

Gaia and I went shopping for our workshop.

Gaia and I went shopping for our workshop today, at Lifethyme, this health food store near my house. Hannah came with us. The store was really amazing. It was filled with various organic foods and other natural items. There was also a juice bar in the back. We went upstairs and got essential oils and coconut oil. We also got coconut milk and oats. We then went to my house and crushed the oats in a food processer.

On 4/30 I taught kids from the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades about malaria through jeopardy. I made a master sheet for myself. I had all the malaria related questions, the answers and their difficulty level. I did the activity with Aaron, Mickey, and Zaran. We all played a part in the process. Aaron told the students what malaria was, Zaran kept score, I explained the rules and read the questions, and Mickey kept time. Some of the questions were about history involving rulers that were infected by Malaria, their statistical questions, and there were science questions about the parasite and how it infects the body. I really do think that a lot of the kids walked away with a full understanding of the disease and what they could do to help out. At the end of the two periods we had a question and answer time. Most of the kids wanted to talk to their friends and hang out. I understood this. After class, all I want to do is talk to my friends, not have a thorough discussion of what we did and learned. Knowing this first hand from being a student. I had decided to let them relax for a few minutes. However, something struck me as I saw a fifth grader raise her hand in the back of the room. Everyone quieted down to let the girl speak. I called on her and I just heard her shy little whisper of, “What can I do to help the kids in Africa?” I was stunned in the best way possible. I had made a kid question, and that to me was amazing.

Without a doubt, I learned way more about teaching yesterday than the 5th, 6th, and 7th graders did about sustainability. The first workshop didn’t go so well, with one group just playing around and eating candy, and the other group doing exactly what we wanted them to do. We (Quinn, Cole, Manny, and I) realized that it had less to do with the children (although it did a bit) than with our actions. Cole prepped one group, going down the list we had given them and giving them certain tasks, while the other group was immediately given a house and started working. They were floundering, and in the end, barely ended up with a house. Some part of it was definitely due to the children, and apparently they annoyed other groups too, but I definitely learned a bit. For the second group, we talked to them both individually before hand, and had two people with each group throughout the workshop. Another thing I learned was that if something doesn’t go as planned, you have to accomodate quickly. Originally it was planned for each workshop to be working on one house, and so only two were built. Somehow, the first workshop ended up with both, and each group (one meant to be working on the outside of one house, and the other on the inside) worked on one whole house. With no houses for the second house, Cole had to create a haphazard nightmare of a house to work on in under 10 minutes, and we had to scrap the house of the group that didn’t work and make it new again. In the end, both groups pulled through better than we had ever expected, and I think they enjoyed the workshop. If Victor and Janis hadn’t monitored the kids and helped out a tremendous amount, it wouldn’t have ended up nearly as well.
In reflection, I thought that although the Day of Learning was good, it could’ve been much better, and things like the film should’ve been better organized.

-The Rob

The day of learning was yesterday and it was a eventful day for the entire middle school. We had two meetings that began and ended the events. Our group did our project but it could have been a better. The 5th, 6th, and 7th graders weren’t very interested in the project but it was still as informative as we could have made it. The completed work represented how our group worked togeather when doing our tree collages and the canvas was a full forest. After the two group activities we had the second meeting where two represntatives that some of my classmates worked with talked about what they do and how that works with sustainability and what message the send out to other people. In middle school meeting, the last representative had came and told us about his experiances. He is a professional and has viewd many schools making a difference in our environment. He also showed us some statistics and gave examples of how we can help in the urban area we live in. It was an inspriring talk and i started thinking of ideas of how our school can go beyond what we are already doing to help. I was thinking we can have a greenhouse on the sections of the roof that aren’t used by the playground or to take away the part of the playground to put in the greenhouse. All grades could add to it and see it grow and change. It would be benificial to a lot of our subjects, including lunch, and would save the school money. That was just one of my ideas from listening while the mad described the other schools that had made ideas to change their own community.

The whole day I taught kids about malaria.

Yesterday was a fun and eventful day. My group had to build models of a room in the school and make it nore green. I was happy that people learned something and had a good time building their models. I alsorealized how hard teaching can be. I also learned how inportant it is to save the environment and how many places help the world in many ways, always having a big inpact. I was also amazed at what was said to us in our classrooms and how hard it is for the world and how we keep polluting it. I was amazed yesterday the entire day. I was also very happy when we got cake after. It made the whole project a little better.

Overall, our workshop went pretty well. I had a few fears of not having enough kids in it, but we had a lot. Apparently the blurb we wrote worked. It was fun seeing the kids try and answer the easy, medium, and hard questions from their memory; it proves that we were teaching them something. The idea of giving them a sheet with all of the answers for two minutes before the questions start seems to have worked the best for teaching them the facts about malaria. I also had worries about the actual quiz not lasting long enough, but it took 15 minutes because we added the Final Jeopardy. (Kids would bet their points on a question at the end) Also, during the five minute long parts where my workshop members and I had to talk, we did not make any mistakes about what we said. We gave each workshop member a subject, and they explained it and connected it to what I and the others said.

The Day of Learning was something I was confused about for a while. I didn’t quite understand what we would be doing, but the activities that were planned worked very well and I am happy we made movies and taught workshops.

I think overall the day of learning went very well.  My workshop was a lot harder than I though it was going to be and I learned that we had to be a lot more direct and not leave anything out in the open.  In the first session one of the groups was not very responsible with the candy.  We then knew we had to plan out everything beforehand so that they had a plan to work off of.  Both groups in the second session were very good and knew what they were doing.  This was definitely due to us not just throwing candy to them, but going over different kinds of things they could put on their house and then helping them to make a plan of what they were going to put on the house.  I think I defintely learned a lot and realized how to run my own workshop.  I also thought that all of the speakers were very interesting.  I thought Josh gave a very interesting presentation and I thought it was very interesting that all of the different schools did a lot to conteract global warming.  I thought that if all of us did just a little bit of that it would make a very big difference.

-Quinn

Today was a success!!!  Everyone in our workshop seemed to be having a very good time.  Everyone got to take home at least two things, and all the recipes were wonderful.  The avocado hand lotion was very popular and if we had some more avocados, I think everyone would have made some.  Sharyn was very enthusiastic about the lotion making.  She made her own face mask and hand lotion.  When Sadie and Ava made the face frappe several people tried it on, including myself.  The man who was photographing us even put it on.  Several people from other workshops came in to our room and would comment on how good it smelled.  Some of the seventh graders seemed as though they weren’t listening when Talia and I were talking, but other then that everyone payed attention and everyone was very enthusiastic.

-Gaia

Gaia and I were originally going to just have people trying on organic beauty products for our workshop, but then we realized that would be kind of boring. When we found out we would be able to have a double period, we realized we could have people make their own! We found a website called makeyourowncosmetics.com, and we picked a bunch of recipes off of that. We are really excited.

Gaia and I decided to have our workshop be making organic beauty products.

It has almost been four months since we started the sustainability project. Talia and I have been working with salon founder John Masters for two months. We have decided for the Day of Learning that we are going to direct a workshop where ten students will get the chance to make their own beauty products. During this workshop we will show the participants that they can make products that can found in makeup stores, right in their own kitchen. We will be using ingredients like avocado, honey, essential oils, salt, sugar, and many others. We plan on making some of the following: Grapefruit Face Frappe, Avocado Honey Mask, Pumpkin Pedicure, and several others. The people in our workshop will be able to chose a recipe with a partner. We will supply examples of on or two of the recipes so our group members have an idea of what they are doing.  Talia and I are very prepared I feel.  We have many ingredients and just the right amount of each one.  When we did a small run through for Tracy, she didn’t have any real critism for us, except that we should provide examples.  I feel confident that we will be able to keep everyone under control and be able to have everyone go home with new information in their head.  Something that might be a problem is the demand for a blender and or food processor in many of the recipes.  Tomorrow we will sort everything out.

- Gaia

Quinn and I (cole) spent over an hour taking to two people at the architects offices.

Quinn and myself (Cole) spent 1-2 hours at a green expo. at the hilton hotel  

After months of work, the day finally came. At 9 o’clock, when staring at 11 5-7^th graders it was time to begin… and pray the workshop would be a success.  When out workshop started rolling one group was a lot more productive then the other.  The reason of this is because the productive group was with candy and a graham cracker house and forced to design a house before building.  The other group was just carelessly throwing on candy.  When the productive group started they were great and I was really impressed.  While getting ready for the next session, without even a secound of though all three of my partners and I knew that for the next group we would make them follow how the productive group went about.  As expected they secound session went smoothly.          For next year, with the workshops I think they are a great idea, but they have to be longer.  Also if possible, not taking away from how well our Panel and the guest speaker for our grade, I think when learning about something like this if we could incorperate more hands on and less sitting down listenin to someone speak it would be even better.  

Today I was one of the hosts of the workshop sweet sustainable jewelry.  We prepared with buying a bunch of bags, I think about 6, of starburst for our workshop.  When we began the workshop, the members of the group seemed very excited to have starburst at their fingertips.  I was very excited to begin the workshop.  We all began by explaining what you can do to be sustainable when eating your treats.  For example, we said that if you eat candy or gum often, you can save the wrapper [if it’s rectangular] and then make something beautiful.  We demonstrated with starburst wrappers and we folded them so they could be intertwined to make a lovely bracelet.  Everyone was a bit confused as to how to fold the paper, but we went around and helped everyone that felt that they were struggling.  I really enjoyed helping people with their questions about sustainability and how to reduce, reuse and recycle.  I enjoyed this because is really felt confident about my answer.  Everyone seemed to enjoy making bracelets and we played some music and definitely had a lot of fun!  I learned a lot from the speakers that I didn’t already know about how to save our earth.  I learned that I can decorate my apartment with very sustainable art from my art committee.  I am very content with the way we conducted our workshop because everyone seemed to have a lot of fun and also learned a lot but was obviously never bored by what we were saying.  It was exciting to listen to the things that our group members had to contribute and their creativity with the starburst.  I think that everyone in the group really actually learned a lot from this workshop.  -Ama Torres

On April 17th Quinn and I visited the Grimshaw Architects to see how they incorporate going green when going green.  After explaining how our school is focusing on sustainability they told us about their unique way of green design.  At Grimshaw they are not the protocol designers who settle for only good.  They base their designs on the climate around the building and find ways to use the climates energy year round.  Most buildings don’t go the lengths they do when designing a building.  They look for the building impact of humans, natural resources, water, air in the atmosphere, land and soil, community, cultural features, the transportation used to build it, the clean energy, minimizing energy loss, embodied energy, and the climates issues.  The woman we talked to was named Alice who went through a power point explaining each slide.  A couple that stuck out to me was that if the whole world had the same ecological footprint as the U.S. then we would have to have 5 earths. Another slide said 12% of water use, 39% co2 emissions, 65% waste output, and 71% electricity consumption is from buildings.The company has building across the globe and has shown us that you can be green in unique and different ways.    

I personally think that today was a great day.  I think that we have set the expectation level for the years to come.  It’s a good feeling when you are the first ones to do a very long and stressful project that many other grades will have to do.  There were a few problems with the kids’ reactions, but hey kids are kids and no doubt we were probably the same way.  If I were to change one thing in the whole project it would probably be the amount of homework we had while we were doing this with all of the other projects.  It just brings our grades down and forces us to get about no sleep.  I also think that the highschoolers should be involved so we can see what the people we have taught came up with as their project idea. All in all I think that we handled the whole project very well, and I am very excited to see what next years class comes up with.

My work shop was the solar shop and we had a lot of fun.  I thought we did ok for the first time teaching kids.  We had mostly 5th graders about one sixth grader and two eighth graders, and we tried to mix the groups up so they weren’t all with there friends.  I think that all the kids really enjoyed our workshop.  I learned today that we use a lot of stuff, and wast them when we can reuse them, like bottles, and plastic bags.  I never knew that we used so many paper bags though.  I was confused by the video with the green guy on guitar.   -David 

Today was the day of learning, I think it went well and everyone seemed to learn a lot. My workshop Group “The Little Green School House” didn’t seem to have a lot of flaws, it went smoothly. we had to think on our feet for a bit because we forgot to get a piece of information we didn’t realize we needed. other than that, the kids in our group really seemed to enjoy our class. One of the kids in the group came up with very creative ideas and was the winner of the prize (lolipops) which we end up giving everyone in the class anyway for such good work they put in. In general I think that they learned a lot from our class. I learned a lot from the videos and the people who spoke to us about sustainability. I was shocked when Josh showed us pictures that looked like nothing from far away but when he zoomed in there were thousands of the item and then a fact about the picture. The whole day went well, and I hadn’t realized how hard it is to teach a class. By the end of the day everyone was very tired, but the cake was a great way of ending this project and a nice congratulations. What amazes me is that the day went by in a flash and we have been preparing for it for so long and now its over. Today was a was a great way of not only ending this project but teaching everyone in the middle school about it. -Hannah Rifkin 

We spent 1 hour teaching 1 sixth grader  and 4 fifth graders how to make the classrooms in our school greener. I worked with Taylor, Maya and Hannah R

Today, was the finale of all our hard work and effort, The Day Of Learning. I personally was very nervous especially since we barely had anytime to practice considering that I was working on my committee project with
Niles, and Amy. But when we practiced, we got a lot done and we got the hang of it. Mainly, one person helped one group. There were 4 of us and 3 groups. I helped the group that included Henry (Chapin), and Cole Fenton. He eventually won the “contest” that we had, and received 5 lollypops while the others got 3. There were some parts that we could’ve done better. Like in the beginning, we had forgotten the glue. So I had to sneak down and get some glue sticks for the groups. Also next year I think that you (as in Leila and Sarah) should tell the students to put their names on the bags that they use to keep their stuff in. We lost about 2 or 3 bags of stuff just because someone thought that the stuff was theirs. I had a really good time and I hope that who ever takes Leila’s place next year is as “green focused” as she is. Another problem was that (I won’t mention names) _ _ _ _ _ _ didn’t work as much as anyone else and I really think that the teachers should enforce that everyone works their fair share. I really have to say that Maya really stepped up this project and I would like to thank her for really taking the role as leader of this project. I am hoping that maybe the few remaining LREI “middle schoolers” could also make the High School even greener than the Lower/Middle School. Thanks for this project it was quite fun and I hope that Leila has a great life after this year and that Sarah stays here so we can visit her. THANKS AGAIN!

-Calen

I can’t believe this project is finally over! I thought that today went well. It was nice to be able to have a day of mostly relaxation after such a long project. In my workshop, things went smoothly. The kids were all well enough behaved and did what we wanted them to…. though not that many of them ate much fruit salad. We ended up throwing a bunch out which isn’t very sustainable I guess. Of the people who talked, I liked Josh the best. I think he was the most used to talking to groups. I thought it was unbelievable how much waste people produce every single day. And I liked what he and also Dave said about just trying to do one small thing each day. I am glad to be done with this project, but I really did enjoy it. I hope to keep connected with people like Davy, Liz Carollo, and some other farmers. Maybe next year or even over the summer I can help out again. I hope so.

I thought that today went pretty well, the workshop seemed to go very fast. At first I wasn’t sure if people were going to sign up for Make Trees Save the Planet. But a lot of people did and most of them seemed involved in making cut out of trees from the magazine. I thought that today really gave everyone in the school a chance to realize how important it is to be more sustainable. I think that because of the Day of Learning today more and more people in the school will try to reuse more things and not waste as much. I thought that the day of learning was a good way to wrap what everyone in the 8th grade learned throughout these three months working in our sustainability groups. I think that this project should continue next year and the following year after. I think that by allowing students to teacher other students about what we think is important really says a lot. I think that its interesting to listen and learn from kids around our age for a change. Today was an overall fun learning experience for many people. I enjoyed running the workshop with Brianna and Sasha. 

On Wednesday, April 16th, I went back to Get Fresh (where the truffle class took place) in order to interview the founder/owner of the store- Caroll Lee. About a year and a half ago, in 2006, Caroll founded Get Fresh (located in Park Slope Brooklyn), based on her idea of “ready to make meals for busy moms.” She started out by doing research on where our food comes from, and through doing so “Omnivor’s Dilema” by Micheal Pollan, landed in her hands. From reading this book and others, Caroll learned that most of out food come from corn (such as corn syrup), and that corn and beans are the largest crops sold today in the world. However, Caroll “thought that people needed to know what REAL food was,” and in her opinion that is “food that is traditional, whole, and minimally processed.” In order to show people what this type of food really was, Caroll decided to have her new store only support small, local, family farms -all using only organic practices. To her, using the land as much as possible is supporting the generations ahead, and using it in a local way is simply a “win, win situation.” Caroll is simply “supporting people who are supporting the land,” the same practice as Alsiha Lumea, Peter Hoffman, and many others who are beginning to learn about the connection between our world and sustainability. Caroll’s goal was to make Get Fresh as sustainable as possible, so to complete that she uses wrappers that have been made out of recycled plastic and can be recycled, some wrappers she uses are also compostable, the cutlery is made from potatoes, and all of the scraps are composted. Caroll says that in reality “people want to be local, and that Get Fresh just makes it easy.”

I think that today went extremely well, and that the 5th, 6th, and 7th graders enjoyed our workshop on recycled art greatly. It was a little tight trying to fit in a well planned art lesson in 30 -40 min, but in the end i was extremely impressed by the outcome of the creations the kids came up with. I was also very surprised at how many things we had to offer that i wasn’t aware we would be having, such as Josh coming to speak with the school and us, and having soo many videos. I enjoyed all of the day, and am very happy to say that i think on some level we made a difference to how kids think about sustainability in our school, and hopefully they will go on to tell other people about what they have learned today, and so the chain shall begin! I think that the facts Josh dished out about what and how much we use in so little time, really affected me greatly, as well as the rest of the students at the assembely. His visit taught me a lot, especially about what i might be able to do to help. I am extremely pleased all around, and think that it is wonderful we were able to get everything done on time.
~lilly

WOW!I have so much to say I don’t know where to begin. Well, today definitely worked out much better that I expected. Our workshop with a little help from Steve was fair. It neither was exceptional nor terrible and I believe that the kids in our workshop enjoyed it immensely.  Our recycling bin presentation was a bit hasty and unplanned. We originally were going to have a sort of skit going with Julian inside the bin. Fortunately, (I say this because it would have been quite embarrassing plus I needed more time for memorizing lines) he didn’t fit.  Overall today was a joyous conclusion to four months of hard work, although it feels a little bittersweet that it is finally over.

Today was a great conclusion to the 3 month sustainability project.  Aliza, Emma, and I hosted a workshop called Race to the Best Bento Boxes.  We had a lot of students sign up for it so it was in some parts a little hard to manage.  We learned from some of our mistakes in the first class we taught.  The second was definitely better, although we got some gloomy faces.  In the end we learned a lot and most of the students had a lot of fun.  The only think that could have been changed would be the time.  I think 45 minutes would work better.  Also for the day of learning Quinn and I hosted the panel for the second assembly.  I was a little disappointed that John Masters couldn’t come but was relieved when Laida, the person that I had been working with, showed up.  In all this day of learning was a great one.

I thought everything went pretty well. I got to experience what it felt like to have to handle a class full of wild kids. Also what Josh spoke to us about was so facinating. I couldn’t believe some of the things he revealed or told us because they just seem outragous. Like all the trash from such a distance and the little statistics that went along. I was just blown away by that information. The one thing that I would have changed was how short the activity was. I think that there still should have been two sessions, but I feel that if each one was a bit longer, it would have had a stronger impact of the fifth, sixth, and seventh graders.
Overall it went really well, but I’m glad to have this project off my shoulders. Even though we are not required to do our project at the Farmers Market, my group and I still want to go back and help out very once in a while because it is just so much fun.

I think that my day of learning went rather smoothly. The first assembly had good movies and shorts which made it fun and interesting. My movie, however, did not have its music (”What a wonderful world”). Than i was off to the workshops. I lead “Malaria Jeperdy” and learned a few thing myself. Our first workshop was kinda edgy since, for some of us, it was our first ever class. The second, however, went smoothly and felt more alive than the last. The second assembly was rather interesting but since the two guests did not have a mic it was rather had to hear which made it very hard to pay attention. The third assembly (middle school meeting) was much better. The guest was load and had very interesting facts. When he got some solo time with the eighth grade it was still interesting but many kids, including myself, were tiered. In all the day went well except for a few small minor bumps… micki

         I am very relieved that this is all over. I can’t believe we have been doing this for four whole months! I think that our workshop did pretty well. I ran “Make Trees, Save the Planet!” with Brianna and Amy. The second workshop was a lot better than the first because we learned what to do and what not to do from the first workshop. Most kids were accepting and they tried hard, but of course there were the few who were fresh and had an all- around horrible attitude. The finished product was not at all what I had expected it to be, but it was still good. The thing is, without knowing it, Brianna, Amy, and I had had different visions of what the final product was going to look like, even though our descriptions to each other seemed the same. 

          One thing that confused me was that I had previously thought that each group was going to be presenting exactly what they had done. For example, I would have had to show the signs I made for the sales I did for malaria, and Julian, Aaron, and Zaran would have had to present whatever they did to fight malaria. But we never did that.

          Lastly, I loved the cake! It was good to have a celebration after so much hard work.

Today was the day of learning! I think that my workshop went really well although, it started off a little rocky because I forgot some information that I was going to present. The 5th and 6th graders seemed like they had fun, and were very creative with the project. Cole, one of the 6th grader in the group, came up with the idea of using a sun dial, instead of a clock that ran on batteries, which I thought was very creative. I wouldn’t have thought of that at all. I think that it was a good idea that I made a model of a green room, because a few of the 5th graders didn’t really know what a green room or sustainable room was until today. So that was very helpful, and got them working right away and coming up with great ideas. My groups members and I were prepared, and I think that everyone felt pretty confident. Everything went well, and I hope that the 5th and 6th graders in the group think so as well! Overall, I enjoyed today, and hope that the 5th and 6th graders will remember this day, and the ideas that they came up with to carry on for the rest of their lives.

Today was fun, but extremely tiring. Our workshop was somewhat of a hassle. The first group was not exactly interested or cared what the workshop meant even though we really did try (to inspire them). But the second group was much more creative and inspired. I enjoyed both assemblies because I learned new things about other organizations that were visited by the other student groups. But when we had to hear Josh (I forgot his last name) speak to us, I personally felt uninterested and uninspired, I was just watching time go by. By the way, the best and most interesting video shown at the first assembly was the ” I Don’t Believe in Global Warming…..”. Any way, I thought that we did a good job today, but I am glad that is over.  

Nicholas, Robbie, and I went to speak to Phil about getting more recycling bins in the school. The only one is in the cafeteria in the basement. No one is willing to go downstairs to throw a plastic bottle out. It is just easier to throw it in the classroom garbage bin. By doing this, we are adding to more landfill. We told Phil that if we put one on each floor for the eighth and seventh graders, it would help the environment in the long run. I also told him that, even though we may not be affected, our children, our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren would be affected in the long run. If we don’t want to have our future generation suffer, we can start recycling now and make at least a little difference in the world.

This post and the following post were saved as word documents on my computer.  I added one or two sentences at the end.

Today after school, I went to the center of architecture for an interview with a woman named Grace Huan.  I had never been there before, but I had the general whereabouts of where it was.  Sadly, I was kept in study group so I got there late.  I missed part of the interview, but I got the gist of what happened while I was gone.  Grace was very charismatic and easy to talk to.  We kept coming up for questions for her, even when we were finished with the ones we had prepared.  She was also informative, and explained many things I knew nothing about.  For example, I now understand more how the LEED system works, and how it is enforced.  It went very well overall, and it went by a lot quicker than I expected.  I learned quite a bit from the interview, and was able to use most of it in my exposé.

 -The Rob

On April 17th Cole and I visited Grimshaw Architects to learn a little bit about how they interpret green design and encorporate it into their projects.  We were given a very brief tour of the office and shown some of the models of projects in the making.  One of their projects is the Fulton Street Transit Center which is being built right now in lower Manhattan.  We learned that they like to design their buildings to adapt and work with the earth.  They use the natural characteristics of the place they are building to help design what they are going to build.  I found many of their projects very interesting and extremely complex.  They have been building a series of botanical gardens that use very sustianable techniques to keep them running.  The one that they built near Cornwall, England, was used to film the James Bond movie, Die Another Day.  They also built a movable building for some sort of worlds fair in Sevilla, Spain.  This building used a waterfall that went in between two windows to block out the UV rays that cause a lot of heat.  In another building in the Canarie Islands they were able to convert salt water into clean drinkable water without going through the expensive, energy guzzling process of desalination.  Using the heat of solar panels they were able to evaporate the water and then make it hit a cold spot where it then turned back into drops of water.  Instead of using the more conventional ways and designs that are being used by architects today, Grimshaw has been implementing their own great ideas to help people efficiently use what they are given.

-Quinn