We are a small group of educators (teachers and administrators) who are passionate about
both helping children to grow, learn and succeed and helping and sustaining our planet. We
feel that we can have both these missions, all the while allowing students to have hands-on
authentic learning experiences that will teach children about current environmental issues,
what can be done to help alleviate these conditions and what they and their families can do to
assist.
Our motivation for this project is twofold:
1) We would like to help the environment. By promoting the purchase and use of re-usable
shopping bags, the number of single use plastic “t-shirt” bags and paper pulp bags entering the
waste stream could be drastically reduced. This reduction in usage would also impact plastic
bag production and reduce the carbon impact (i.e. Global warming) by not using petroleum
based compounds to produce plastic bags. Paper bag production would be cut, thereby
reducing the use of valuable paper pulp, reducing pollution caused in the paper bag
manufacturing process and reducing land fill space needed after single use bags are discarded.
2) At the same time, school children will have the opportunity to provide authentic assessment
of their learning to a real audience. By sharing their learning with the public they will also help
to educate citizens on various science-related topics. This authentic purpose and audience
would provide students with what many in the education world see as purposeful learning
directly related to the lives of students.
both helping children to grow, learn and succeed and helping and sustaining our planet. We
feel that we can have both these missions, all the while allowing students to have hands-on
authentic learning experiences that will teach children about current environmental issues,
what can be done to help alleviate these conditions and what they and their families can do to
assist.
Our motivation for this project is twofold:
1) We would like to help the environment. By promoting the purchase and use of re-usable
shopping bags, the number of single use plastic “t-shirt” bags and paper pulp bags entering the
waste stream could be drastically reduced. This reduction in usage would also impact plastic
bag production and reduce the carbon impact (i.e. Global warming) by not using petroleum
based compounds to produce plastic bags. Paper bag production would be cut, thereby
reducing the use of valuable paper pulp, reducing pollution caused in the paper bag
manufacturing process and reducing land fill space needed after single use bags are discarded.
2) At the same time, school children will have the opportunity to provide authentic assessment
of their learning to a real audience. By sharing their learning with the public they will also help
to educate citizens on various science-related topics. This authentic purpose and audience
would provide students with what many in the education world see as purposeful learning
directly related to the lives of students.
• To promote the reduction in use of plastic and paper shopping bags by offering businesses and consumers an alternative re-usable shopping bag designed by school children. • Help reduce the amount of single use plastic and paper shopping bags entering the waste stream. • Help reduce petro-chemical consumption and at the same time, help reduce carbon emissions from reducing the production of plastic and paper shopping bags. • Reduce paper pulp consumption by reducing the number of paper shopping bags consumers use. • Provide an authentic and empowering learning and assessment experience for elementary and middle school students. • Teach students about the issues of the state of our current environment, solid waste and it's effects, recycling, carbon emissions, global warming and climate change and creative ways that they and their families can help with provide immediate solutions. • Create integrated, real-life, project-based, individualized and hands-on curriculum for use in grades 4-8 involving lessons in Science, English Language Arts, Math, Social Studies and the Arts. • Provide retail businesses with inexpensive, locally made, and easily obtained re-usable shopping bags. And finally, but most importantly to help raise awareness and promote change of conscious among people around the country and around the world of the need to reduce, recycle and reuse--for the sake of our children and all future generations to come! |
| Who we are |
| Our Goals and Mission: |
Copyright (c) BagSpeak 2008
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