Project S.C.A.T. (u03a1)

Each year my class chooses a community service project. The students always come up with good ideas and worthy causes, but last year's project was a "once in a lifetime" experience. It all started when we agreed to participate in an international online project called Project Lemonade. The project was inspired by the four-year old girl named Alex who raised over a million dollars for pediatric cancer research. The premise was that kids can accomplish anything if they work hard enough and if they work collaboratively, there's nothing they can't do.

My class, Mrs. Abernethy's Cyber Chickens chose to take on a large corporation that had polluted property next door to our school. Wait! I'll let them tell you about the project.




The project was definitely interdisciplinary. Students researched the history of the site all the way back to the early 1900s. They found community members who used to work at the plant and they interviewed them, recording them on a podcast. They summarized dozens of articles they found on the web. The local newspaper was not on the web and they researched articles from this paper in the community library's archives. They also researched the chemicals found on the site.

Students created a wikispace and blog to post all of their research. After working on the project for a few weeks, the local newspaper published an article about a "task force" and the students not only joined the task force, they were an integral part of the town meetings.

Students instituted a "letter writing strategy" in that they developed a list of people they wanted to write letters. Their list included Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, DEP, Governor Ed Rendell, Phil English, Trinity Industries and more. Each week each person on the list received a letter from a different student. A google calendar on their wikispace kept track of who needed a letter.

The last week of school, their hard work paid off. They received a letter from Trinity Industries. The company acknowledged the students' concerns and told of a plan they had to clean up the site. This school year, workers can be seen from our playground. When I see them, I have to smile, because I know that a group of children can make a difference!