Welcome to KIDS4ACTION.ORG!
Do you believe that kids can make a difference in the world if they care enough?
We do, and we invite you to join our grassroots effort to see how much of an
impact kids in Idaho schools can make in the conservation of our planet by
uploading your recycling data to our website each month.
Our 5th grade class, in a small school in Donnelly, Idaho, has carried on the tradition over the last several years of managing the paper recycling in our building. At the end of every month, we collect and bag the paper from the recycle bins in all of our school’s classrooms, weigh it, record the pounds, do the math to calculate how many trees, gallons of water, energy, air pollution, and landfill space we’ve saved. Then we help carry the paper out to a parent or teacher volunteer’s vehicle, who then takes it to our community’s recycling center. Even in our small K-5 school of about 100 kids, we generate an average of 150 lbs of paper in our recycling bins each month. Schools use a lot of paper! We have a big chart in our school’s entryway where we record our monthly paper recycling data.
There are almost 400 elementary schools in Idaho, many much larger than ours. We’re thinking that if all of the 5th grade students in Idaho, or even a different grade at a school, committed to recycling their school’s paper, that we could make a huge contribution to the planet….yes, just us kids. Sure, we can’t drive, so we will need some adult help to get our paper to the recycling center, but we can manage the rest, right? Perhaps you already do this? All you need are collection bins in each room of the building, a scale for monthly weighing, internet access to upload the number of pounds at the end of each month onto our website, and volunteers to transport the paper to the recycling center.
We’re hoping that you will join us in making a difference by uploading the number of pounds of paper you recycle at your school to our website each month. Our site,
www.kids4action.org, will be available for this by March 22. All you have to do is enter your school’s name and information. This will link to a box to enter your “pounds of paper” recycled each month. The website will keep a running total of how many trees , gallons of water, etc. we save as students! We will have a podcast on our site which will show you how to do the calculations yourself if you want a great math lesson, and also to explain the basics of our idea. If you have any questions, you can email us at
bingamand@mdsd.org. We hope you heard us on KRBX FM, RadioBoise between 8-9AM, Sat., March 24th 2012.
Thanks for participating!!!!
Sincerely,
The 5th graders of Donnelly Elementary