January 29, 2008

Our class will participate in this year's Mayor's Environmental Expo. We will design and show a class project. The grade four class will design and complete the project. Our project shall consist of one main project idea with students completing smaller group projects. All of this put together will make up our display at the expo.

Parent volunteers will be needed in the coming months to help with the project and also to attend the Expo.

Check this page for more information in the coming months.

April 3

Our Mayor's environmental expo project has gotten started this week. We have started by gathering data of the waste created in the lunchroom. Below is a basic outline of our project.

Phase 1: Waste Free Lunch campaign

Students will take turns gathering data from the lunchroom. The waste has been divided into 4 different categories; wasted food, organic material, paper towels and convenience packaging. Everyday at lunctime a group of grade four students will make sure all the other students put their waste in the correct bins then we will tally up the number of pieces and keep track of everything on tally sheets. After doing this for about 1 month we will create a display of the data then we will run an awareness campaign to get students let everyone know about problems of waste in our school.

Phase 2: Public service announcemements

Students have been busy this week writing public service announcements on a variety of topics. We will videotape them, then show them at lunchtime to help raise awareness and to help create a waste free lunchroom.

Phase 3: Mini-projects

All students will take part in mini group projects related to the environment and our topic.

All of these items and a few others will be presented at the mayor's environmental expo on june 5.

Working in groups of three students will complete one of the projects described below.

Project 1: Composting report

The assignment is to research and then make a report on composting. Students in this group will then lead the rest of the class in an activity to make mini-composters.

Project 2: Schoolwide survey

Students will conduct a survey to find out what our students recycling habits and attitudes are. The survey shall be conducted online in order to save paper.

Project 3: Alternative transportation study

In this project students will conduct a study to find out exactly what goes into the atmosphere when someone drives a car. They will interview a cyclist to learn and calculate how much CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are prevented from entering the atmosphere by using a bicycle to get to work.

Project 4: What's a Landfill

In this project students will research landfills. They will find the answers to such questions as; what goes into a landfill? What is all the fuss about the landfill? How long it takes for certain items to decompose in landfills? How long do landfills last etc.

Project 5: Home Garbage Audit

In this project students will examine how much waste their family creates in one week.

Project 6: Trivia Game

In this project students will create a jeopardy style trivia game using information and questions about conservation, the 3 Rs and the environment. The game will be made on the computer to cut down on paper.

Project 7: Water Use Survey

In this project students will conduct a survey to find out about St. Pius X school community attitudes concerning water usage.

Project 8: Make your own water filter

In this project students will make and demonstrate a simple water filter to demonstrate water filtration devices.