The day brought tears to my eyes because I saw this as a first step among many my students will take to reach out into their community and create change and excitement through expressing their interests, concerns, and vision for a better future both within our community and world. When Louise and Ashley Cadwell lead a workshop at our school, they asked our staff to write a few words about our dream for La Scuola. The idea of seeking out authentic audiences for our children feels absolutely vital to the work we are trying to do within my class and as a school. As we think about sustainability, we are always trying to consider how our actions and words can have a tremendous effect on the way others in our community and world will do things concerning taking care of our earth AND each other. Also, the valuable resources available in our community are there, just waiting for us to discover them, bring them back to our home to share, make meaning of, and create personal connections to through exploration, questioning and the 100 other ways children learn and make sense of the world. Finding authentic audiences for my children to share their strong, capable, passionate selves with the community is my dream for our children, and this experience was a precious first step toward achieving it.
Please let me know if you are aware of other opportunities in or outside of Miami for our children to share. We are excited and ready to step up to many other challenges.
The project itself grew out of our larger overarching question “What is Water?” The question was born out of watching and listening to the children talk, read, and create work related to water. Water is very much a part of the identity of Miami. It makes up our ocean, flows through the Everglades, and we experience VERY wet seasons, and extreme draughts as well. Children's interest in water grew organically, and we have explored the many questions that fall under the larger question throughout the year. The idea of water conservation, which turned out to be the heart of the project the children presented at YouthCAN, was sparked by spending time in the school garden and feeding the plants with rainwater caught from our rainy season. The children became interested in measuring the rainfall and keeping track of how much rain was being caught each day. In addition to measuring rainfall, the children became excited about the idea of measuring the amount of water we were using as a class each day by tracking how many times we flushed the toilet, showered, took a bath, and ran the sink. This was measured in gallons and the children were able to visualize the amount by using milk gallons.
After finding out they were each averaging about 50 gallons a day and we were not catching a single drop of water of rain day after day, the children made the connection that we were using a lot of water, but we were not catching natural rain water because we are in the dry season and experiencing a drought. The children expressed interest in creating more rain barrels to catch additional water during the wet season "so we would not run out of natural rain water when the dry season comes again" They also made a pact to take less baths and shorter showers, turn the sink off while they were brushing their teeth, and share this information with their peers, family members, and community.
Next, the children began designing beautiful rain barrels. In conjunction with their rain barrel designs, they also planned to start another garden so we could enjoy the beautiful plants that benefit from the rain we catch. Throughout the process the children learned countless 21st century skills as well as everyday skills that are important to a child’s 1st and 2nd grade year of school. Among these skills were measuring in inches, centimeters, feet, cups, ounces, and gallons; perimeter and area, researching, effective communication skills, collaboration skills, presentation skills, persuasive writing, and many more.
I am unbelievably proud of my class, and I am confident this is just the tip of the iceberg for them. We hope to face many more challenges and think critically about what we can do to contribute to our community positively.
