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

When I was assigned the job of editor[s] i thought that it would be a one time edit and that would be it…not as planed. Zaran and I finished the entire project a littler later than I thought and had more corrections that I Predicted. We corrected until 3:20 in the computer lab and i burned the new DVD when i got home, in all it was a very time consuming yet fun day. Besides the movie i saw a documentary of the future of electric power, which was very cool. It talked about how oil gives humans 100% power while solar panels give 30%-60% if lucky. But by re-creating the crystals structure, solar panels get to a peak of about 130% power.  Apart from being a break through, this would cost about the same price as solar panels today. GE is also creating the best wind turbines in the world. GE has just made a windmill that can give power to 500. That is a ratio of 1-500 meaning that to power 200,000 homes they would only need 200 windmills. In Europe scientists have just created the first non-nuclear energy. Right after the amazing event, however, the power shut down and all information was lost. The plant will get further funding to re- create the moment. In my prospective, if the government did not give its yearly check worth over 500 billion and gave about half of that to green experimentation scientists would reach there goal much faster that without 250 billion dollars. If it continues like it is today, however, it would take more time and even run the last jungle dry of life…

Today I went to the AIANY Center for Architecture to interview Grace. The interview was at three-thirty but we were supposed to show up five minutes early. I wasn’t sure where the group was supposed to be interviewing Grace and I went up and down a lot of floors looking for them. I had just barely found them before three-thirty because I kept forgetting about the second floor while I was in the stairwell. When I entered the room I saw that Calen, Manny, Maya, and Ella had already arrived. I looked around and saw that we weren’t interviewing her anywhere special just around a table. There were snacks and drinks in the center and Grace wasn’t in thee room yet. I settled myself and the group took this time to go over what each person in the group was going to do and in which order would we ask questions. I had the job of observing body language and the ways she spoke. Grace was very welcoming and we had a great discussion. About a half an hour had gone by when Robbie entered the room. He sat down and jumped right into the conversation. Grace used a lot of “likes” and “uhhhs” when she talked. She used a lot of hand motion while she was talking. Grace also had a great sense of humor and frequently made jokes while she was talking. She seemed very learned and we learned a few new things about her. She had been teaching art all of her life and was something that she enjoyed. She was very happy being able to make things for the Center of Architecture. She had just joined the group in September and was almost as new to it as we were. Though she had little experience she proved very knowledgeable and had a huge impact on our thoughts of sustainability.

Today Manny, Calen, Robbie, Ella, Maya, and I went to the AIANY Center for Architecture to conduct an interview with Grace.

After going to many restaurants I’ve noticed that all of them are in prodomimently white neighborhoods. I think this is because White people hav enough money to think about what they eat so they can afford it. But to most black people and minorities, worry more of getting food so they can eat that wherever it comes from it doesn’t matter. steak is $7 dollars more than regular beef. I thought that was an issue that could be fixed. because if you tell every one

About 2 weeks ago, I went with Sophia and Ava to the Chelsea Market to interview Mary Cleaver about Organic food. She presented us with a lot of information over the hour and a half or so, including her own view on the term “organic”. She turned out to be very helpful, and a lot of the information we got from her was transferred into my expose. One of the most interesting things she presented was the way that her company goes about choosing the organic farms they collaborate with. She told us that many of the farms weren’t certified, however are better than some that are. To be certified the farms have to feed animals organic food, while there is no rule as to the conditions that animals live in. The Cleaver Co makes sure that their food comes from legit farms, which is unique.

Earth day was when our group finally got to work as volenteeres with our organization. the person we were working was was named James. We had lot of fun, we were trying to spead the “knowledge” in Harlem in front of the state office building. we learned many things, like how hard it was to pass out flyers! we learned how to make a salad (healthy salad) out of spinach and strawberries and cottage cheese (it was delicious). We learned how important our fight for a sustainable world was also how much fun it was. Many caring organizations came together and shared their caring and knowledge with the communty. There was music and to celebrate our good work we each ate fruit and ices sold on the street.
it was the most inspiring thing I have witnessed so far.
I had alot of fun!!!!
By Aliza Holmes

The day of learning is tomorrow and everyone seems to be ready but a lot of people are trying to finish their work for their workshop and committee. It has been very hectic this past few weeks and especially this one. My workshop group is set and so is my committee which was sign ups. I hope the day of learning works out as planed and that the students who are in our workshops have fun.  

For the day of learning my group (Maya P., Calen, and Taylor) is doing a workshop about green architecture. the idea is for the students to make their own idea of a green LREI. They will build one of the rooms in LREI and make it green. our session is a double workshop to make sure that everyone has a chance to make what they want. Yesterday a person came and and pretended like she was the students, she gave us feedback that we had to memorize what were saying and make it more interesting. we also made a example of what their suppose to do.  

Yesterday and the day before, I made popcorn. Today I will make some more. I am aiming for a $100 profit, but by the way things are going, that doesn’t seem likely. I have twenty bags left to sell. Some of my money is lost. But who knows? maybe people will make big donations. This is probably my last donation to Against Malaria, at least for this project, so I want to make a lot of money. I made a lot of bags. I probably spent 7 hours in total popping the popcorn.
            Because this is the third time I have sold food to people around the school, I will be able to sell the popcorn much faster. I found that if you let people know that the selling is for a good cause, they often donate extra money. I think I will buy some from myself, as well.

I did another popcorn sale today, yesterday, and the day before.

The sustainability project is tomorrow and i feel that we are set for the project. My group members include Sasha and Amy and our project is called Make Trees, Save the planet. The in depth message that we are trying to send to the people working with us is to conserve as many tree projects as possible. The project we are going to have people do is to make collages in the shape of trees out of recycled magazines. When we presented our ideas to Kitty, our adult reviewer, she suggested that we give really detailed descriptions on what conserving trees really means and we as kids can do to help. A part of being a progressive school is to have its members come up with their own opinions to add to a group idea. Kitty suggested that we ask people how they would change their “tree usage” and then write it on the board to show them the accumulated ideas. Kitty helped us really add a greater meaning to our project and i really hope that people will enjoy it and share our experience.

When we first started preparing for the workshop, there were a few different ideas that we had. One idea was to have a taste test between deli food and organic food, but we dissagreed because we thought that just because it is organic, doesnt mean that someone will enjoy it more. For example we thought if someone loved Chips Ahoy cookies, those tested to an organic cookie might not compare for them. We kept narrowing down until we came to the conclusion that making a organic and local fruit salad would be enlightening and also fun. Some of the difficulties were finding fruit that grew locally and wouldn’t cost us too much money. Even though there were a lot of problems, we think that our workshop should be very effective because if people listen to the information that we are supplying, then they really might make a decision that they don’t need the mangos that grow in Costa Rica every week because it is horrible pollution and that they can eat the delicious food that grows near by.

I called my sister, who lives in Virginia, and interviewed her about any sustainability work she has done. She told me that she hadn’t done anything, but she wished she had. She had something in mind, but it never took off. She wishes she had done something to help people, because she had a really good idea. She did not know how to help though, and she never asked for help. I wish that she had done something, because people would have benefited from it.

So far for Emma, Aliza, and I our Bento Box workshop is great.  Everything has been planned out and we have all the materials we need.  I hope we get a lot of people and not just girls! For the committee Quinn and I have got two of our three people to be on the panel.  If anyone has worked with a cool person at their organization that could be on a panel give me their contact and I will set them up. 

Today Robbie and I went to the Center for Architecture Foundation for about 2 hours. This was our last meet with our coordinator, Grace Huang. I got to the center around 9:45, and Robbie had gotten there around 9:30. We helped set up the tables and put out some of the supplies, before the families started to arrive. At this session we didn’t really get a chance to learn too much about green architecture, but we met Mr. Bleecker, whose name was taken as a name of a street, Bleecker street. After we listened to what he presented to us about his job as a photographer, one of the architects gave us a short introduction on what we were going to do for the session. We were going to walk around Bleecker street, and look at the architecture around us. Then, we had to find different details in the buildings, and draw them. I didn’t like this activity too much, but I think it was more for the little kids in the group. After about a half an hour outside, we went back to the center and made pop-up buildings, drew designs, and pasted different shapes onto the buildings that were popping out. Although their were only 4 families at the family day, and Robbie and I were the only people from LREI who went to the session, I had a lot of fun and learned that Bleecker street is actually named after someone! It was a little sad that that was the last session, but I felt that I learned a lot over all, and would want to continue to learn about green architecture in the future.

Today I went with Maya (P), Robbie, Niles, Ella, and Manny to interview coordinator Grace Huang about sustainability for our exposé. We had a very rough start and in the end we had to improvise and make questions on our own. Many of the questions we asked didn’t get the answer we had hoped for. To make things worse, our tape recorder ran out of tape and we had to record the interview with the digital cameras we had brought. I learned that many of the sustainability volunteers didn’t know as much about sustainability as we do. The only green thing green in that whole building was the fact that the floors are made with cork. There wasn’t much that I was surprised or learned about. It was a interview and I didn’t expect to learn much. Although , the interview was quite fun and I hope I see Grace quite soon.

Today Robbie and I went to the Center for Architecture Foundation for about two hours.

Today I went to interview Grace Huang with Ella, Calen, Niles, Manny, and Robbie. The interview lasted a little longer than an hour. Ella and I got there a little before 3:30, the time we were supposed to meet. We talked a little about Grace’s interest in art and teaching, which lead to our conversation about her job at the Center for Architecture. We changed the subject a few times here and there, but it all lead to green architecture and her job that she has at the center. I had fun getting to know Grace a little more, although we had a few technical difficulties getting the recorder to work. I learned that Grace was more into art and teaching than architecture, but the job as a teacher became available, and the more time she spent learning about architecture, the more she fell in love with it. Grace answered each of our questions thoughtfully and asked for a clarification If something seemed confusing. She seemed calm and relaxed, but also excited I think because we were so interesting in what she was doing and green architecture. Green architecture is also very important, so getting young people like us interesting in helping to slow down and hopefully stop global warming is very important. Overall, I think that everything went very well and I learned a lot about Grace, and a little more about green architecture.

Today I had an interview at the Center For Architecture with Maya, Niles, Manny, Robbie, and Ella. We had an interview with the coordinator Grace Huang. We spent an hour and fifteen minutes asking her questions and listening to her answers.

Today, me and Jack came after school to paint more of out part of the door.  I finished my sketches for the door and starting measuring how long the train should be.  Carin gave me a ruler to do this and it was fun.  Me and Jack planned to connect our paintings using the musical notes passing through both out paintings.  I think this is a good idea so even though all the paintings are different they have a connection to them.  I started putting my letters on the door and then messed up on them so I tried and tried again to fix it and finally made it look good.  This is a very fun project that I’m doing.  Carin told us that when were done we are going to present it at some famous place.  

I arrived at the greenmarket with Sophie and was ready to work.  I was assigned to a woman named Ellie.  Ellie ran a goat cheese stand and business was crazy as soon as I arrived.  I could not find work to do while she was helping all of the customers.  So finally when it quieted down, she told me what I could do.  The first thing I was assigned to do was to walk her dog, which ended quite quickly, then I ran some errands for her.  After I completed these simple tasks, I was requested to replace the cheese that was to taken every time that it was taken, which was not that often.  She told me how she was different from other stands, and I learned more about goats.  I learned that goats should not be fed as cows are, they should be fed dandelions, and weeds.  They are raised in an calm environment, and they are treated with great care.