February 2011 (Proszek)

Many things have happened for our group in February, despite the number of snow days. Here are some of the activities that have been happening this month:

Teaching: Our group has been in the classroom two times this month to teach the Boyd elementary students about recycling and other positive green activities. As always, healthy snacks were included and the students were well behaved. Unfortunately due to snow day conflicts I was unable to make the two teaching sessions, however there have been some good developments in other areas of our project with which I am more involved (more on that later).

We are looking forward to more teaching sessions in March, with a focus on keeping our ponds, forests, and sidewalks free of trash. As Spring begins to permeate the environment a little more, we will also talk about the energy from the sun and how we can use it in smarter ways to power the planet.

Carnival: In tandem with Central high school, our group will be hosting a "Think Green" carnival for the community on Earth Day. We have had our first meeting with the coordinator of the event at Central, and will continue to meet every Monday until the actual event to track the progress of our planning. I will be at the "ring toss" booth where kids can try to toss the ring onto empty plastic and glass bottles. Around the outside will be trash cans which are bad because "plastic and glass should never go into the garbage." Winners will receive a fun earth-friendly prize and everyone will walk away with a piece of candy. Again, the idea is that the kids learn that plastic and glass bottles should be recycled and not thrown into the trash, because plastic bottles are among the highest recyclable material that is put in landfills each year.

Garden: Our first event this semester was helping take the weeds out of Boyd's vegetable garden. In the coming months I am hoping to help the students plant and cultivate new vegetables for the garden. If successful, we might even be able to share some of the "fruits of our labor" with the entire Summit community during a class period. Only time will tell.

That's all for February, hopefully March brings less snow.

Start of 2nd Semester - Smith

    During our second semester in Summit I see our group accomplishing even more than last semester. We know what we are doing, and how to get it done. Besides still leading Green Team meetings and having in class presentations, our group is going to team up with Boyd Elementary and Central High School  to make the coolest green carnival ever. Due to school cancellations we haven't been able to have many events with them so far this year, but we already have a head start compared with when we got started last semester.

     Unfortunately I have no experience volunteering this semester. Our group has only been able to visit Boyd once, and I had class during that time. Snow has definitely been the greatest challenge this semester, as it has kept me from being able to volunteer. I am not complaining though, I love having snow days myself, and if it has to be cold outside, I want some snow on the ground.

    I am really looking forward to our Summit event in April. We haven't decided on exactly what we are doing yet, but I know it is going to be a lot of fun. The ballroom dancing that our neighbors hosted was awesome, it was also the first Summit house event I was able to attend.

    Being one of the people put completely in charge of a project has made my leadership skills grow at an incredible rate. Its one thing to take classes about leadership and learn all about how to be a leader. But when you are put into a position where no one is telling you what to do, or giving you guidelines for a project, when the things that were learned in all the classes actually get put to use, that is where the biggest growth happens. I literally feel like I have gone through a growth spurt.

                           

Summit This Semester

The new semester at Summit has had a slow beginning because of the snow days there have been whenever the group has planned an activity for certain dates. However, I did many things at the beginning of the semester where I lacked a lot last semester: for example, I visited the recycling place near Drury and was very impressed by the organization of the recycling process here. Although I have recycled, by placing different cardboard, metal, plastic, and glass on different bins, I had never visited one of these places either here in Missouri, or in Guatemala. It was very exciting to see how it works, and I am looking forward in getting more involved in recycling for summit whenever my roommates and me make the trips to this recycling center this semester.
Besides recycling, we have gone to give a class at Boyd to fifth graders and recap with them the importance of being Green, and what it means to recycle, why we should do it, and what are different ways of doing it. The kids were very engaged and cooperative, and we divided them into groups to make it more effective and dynamic. Afterwards, we shared the results with the class, and ended up treating them to organic juice and bars. We also left them a little Valentine's Day recycling present, a little flower pot of forget-me-nots and some other plants they can grow by themselves. It was a fun activity and I think the kids enjoyed it because of how engaged and happy they were.

So far, regardless of the obstacles of the weather and managing the schedule with Boyd, things are looking good... I know my roommates have been on top of organizing the Green Carnival and we will probably be partnering with a lady who will organize an activity for the children for Earth Day. So far, its looking good, and I'm enjoying Summit as much as last semester.

Summit Summary (February)

     I, like everyone else I'm sure, am so glad the weather has changed. The snow has melted. The side walks are clear. The weather is warm. And during a French class today a pleasant breeze blew through the room. I can move my car. I can walk on the side walk. I can ride my bike. 

     The snow, although beautiful (before the snowplows tainted it with dirt) made everything a little more difficult. Drury and Springfield just weren't prepared for this amount of snow. Mais, c'est la vie. Drury had a couple of snow days as a result. And Boyd Elementary (our organization) had even more snow days. We'd scheduled some in-class presentations with them. We'd talked with one of the fifth grade teachers. The fifth-grade class had been discussing environmentalism, so we'd planned on doing a presentation on "Going Green" for a couple of the classes. With the original plan, there were a few scheduling difficulties. First, there's the schedule of the class and when it works best for the class and the teacher. Then we are all full-time college students, so there's that. The teacher gave us some options for the two presentations we were going to do (one for each fifth-grade class). Of course, we couldn't all make it at the same time. Our best compromise was to pick a couple of times when each of us could go to at least one. Which is what we did. So we went through this process a couple of times, doing it all over again each time class got canceled because of snow days. 

     We finally got to present for the kids. We mostly worked with them, seeing what they already knew about being green, and building further off of that. It was exciting to hear that they already knew quite a bit about environmentalism. Maybe not all schools are like Boyd, but it's great to know that that has become a part of school curriculum. 

     Over the course of the next semester, I'm excited to continue working with the kids. It's refreshing to work with this age group. They're smart and imaginative. They bring a new perspective to these issues. I hope we can encourage more students to join the Green Team (the after school group). It'll give us a chance to work with more students more often. 

     I'm most excited for the Green Carnival we're going to have around Earth Day. We're planning on working with Central High School because they usually do an event like this. So there's an established event which means we'll have some structure, but then we can also bring new ideas and new energy to this project. 

     As far as leadership roles, I think working with Boyd has helped my ability to work within a team. It's also helped me with my time-management skills. 


-Desirée

Some Sun for Summit

It's hard to believe it's already February... and that it's 70 degrees outside! But it is even harder to believe that our Summit project is more than half way over with. January and most of February, as Anna and Drew both mentioned, were covered in snow and ice; thus, rendering our service efforts ineffective. But thanks to the sun and higher temps, we finally got our project rolling again on February 11th with an in-class presentation discussing "green" living and sustainability. If the weather cooperates, we will be doing our second installment of that in-class presentation next Thursday for the other 5th grade class.

For this semester, I'm incredibly excited for our Green Carnival (as Anna also mentioned). Our plans have developed from simple craft giveaways and food, to green games, presentations, and family participation. To my delight, and surprise, there are a couple of teachers from Central High School who have also been planning a similar event, and we will be meeting with them and their students next Thursday to discuss collaborative efforts!

The Summit class project/activity that I'm looking forward to most is the technology fast. Although when this was proposed on the syllabus there were loud grumbles, I think it will be a great experience. I'm interested to see how I will feel after 24 hours without my phone or computer. Will I survive? :)

This semester has made me a stronger leader in that I am improving my communication skills, my interpersonal skills, and my skills as a manager and coordinator. I do not plan on taking on additional leadership roles in the group this semester. We are all doing fairly well in the roles we already fill.

Until next month!
Peace, love, happiness,
Amy "Millie"

The Highs and Lows (in degrees) of Jan/Feb- Regan

         So far, January and February have been characterized by lots of planning, canceling, and rescheduling due to the blizzards we have enjoyed over the past couple weeks. After numerous cancellations and rescheduled dates, however, our group was finally able to work out a time to go meet with the 5th grade class at Boyd last Friday afternoon. For our in class presentation, our group decided to work with the 5th graders by having small group discussions quizzing them over their "Green Knowledge." Since the 5th grade class has been doing a unit on environmentalism, the results that we got were extremely encouraging. Not only did the kids in this class have a good grasp on what kinds of things threaten the "greenness" of our planet, they also were full of descriptive and innovative solutions as to how we can all pitch in and help make our planet a more sustainable one.

       Although I have thoroughly enjoyed the classroom work that we have been able to do last semester and this last week, I am most looking forward to our group's plan to host a schoolwide Green Carnival for all of the kids at Boyd this spring.  Last semester, one of our most successful projects was when we were able to host a Green Recess Day where all of the kids came out after lunch and got to make green crafts and interact with our group.  After the success of this, I am hoping that our Green Carnival can be a bigger and better version of this- a MEGA-Green Recess, if you will.

      In order to ensure that this Carnival will be a success, however, it will be up to our group to have better communication with the school and with each other in order to make sure the event can be as fantastic as we hope it will be. With a better feel for what works (and doesn't work) for our group, I am hoping to utilize this semester as a chance to keep building the leadership qualities that I have seen develop from last semester, and to challenge myself to be more personally involved in the long-term planning initiatives of our group.  Now that the weather has finally cleared up (our greatest challenge in volunteering at the school), we are looking forward to a new semester and more exciting activities and interaction with the kids at Boyd.

The New Kid on the Block

I feel like I should parade around in an American flag button-down shirt and a cowboy hat on occasion after seeing that picture on the right…anyway, as the newest resident of the Summit Shack, I’d like to thank you guys for choosing me to fill Ethan’s shoes.  Although I may choose alternative rock over country and am not nearly as good at stretching out a tight hammy on the second day of an ultimate tournament, I hope that I can be as charismatic as the two guys that have moved on (dang, it sounds like they died or something).  Jared and Ethan, I hope you’re doing well and you’re definitely missed.

It was quite a decision to switch residences and pick up the Think Green at Boyd Elementary project halfway through the year.  I moved in four weeks ago both excited to get started and unsure of what to expect.  Four weeks later, I still feel these emotions.  I haven’t gotten an opportunity to go over to Boyd yet both because of classes and the white death, so I don’t really have a sense yet of how this whole process works.  It was interesting reading the previous posts on this blog.

A sense that I get from the previous posts is that communication is lacking right now.  I’ve worked in groups this size (although not on a project of this type) and found both positive and negative results.  Generally, the sense that I get about large groups like this is that process is key: everyone needs to be on the same page, know their role exactly, and feel confident about what they are doing.  And so I ask: are these being fulfilled right now?  What do we need to do better as a group in order to achieve the best process and get the best results?  Organization is very important when seven people are working toward one goal, and maybe we need to take a step back and work out that part of this project.

This semester will be a period of growth for all of us as group members have shifted and roles in the project as a whole may change.  I hope that once I get the opportunity to go to Boyd and become more active in this project that I can be a strong contributor to the group’s success.

-Drew KB