One Month Left (But Who's Counting?)

Between our summit project, classes, and other extra curriculars, the month of April has been an extremely busy one. Although the spring semester always seems to be an extremely busy one, our group has found time to continue our work at Boyd Elementary in some new and exciting ways.  While we generally do more hands on work at Boyd, this month has mostly been geared towards planning and preparations for some of the big events we are going to hold in the next couple of weeks. Amongst these things we have been planning for is our biggest, most exciting event: the Green Carnival we will be hosting at Boyd.  At this Carnival we will be coordinating with Boyd faculty and staff to maximize the amount of time that kids will be able to come out onto the playground and participate in all of the exciting booths we set up. From recycled crafts to planting plants, we hope that the Green Carnival will be a fun, interactive way to teach the kids at Boyd how to be a bit greener, and how to have fun doing so.

Over the past month one of the most difficult issues our group has run into is coordinating times that work for the whole group to plan for the Green Carnival.  We have partnered with a group from Central High School who will be working with us to make the Green Carnival a success. While this partnership has been extremely helpful in delegating all of the work that needs to be done, it has been frustrating trying to coordinate times to meet with them since they are limited to meeting right after their school gets out at 3:00 pm.  IN spite of this, however, different members of our group who are free at that time have been very committed to going over for every meeting and working to get everything lined up.

As far as the rest of this semester is concerned, the Green Carnival will be our biggest project, but we also have some smaller, fun events to set up too. Amongst these is a fun little community project going on this Sunday where our group is meeting with Paula Tindell, a woman from the Springfield community who works to maintain a memorial garden at Phelps Grove Park.  Working with Ms. Tindell, our group will be buying and planting flowers in memory of victims of crimes in Springfield. Along with this, our group will be doing a Summit Social here in the next couple weeks, more details to to follow on that so stay tuned!

Happy April!!

Anna Regan

April Showers Bring Cool Lightning...

Although I missed Summit class today and this blog post isn’t quite on time, let me tell you that the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City is phenomenal.  Check it out even though the website is far from doing it justice: http://www.nelson-atkins.org/

I feel that just the past week has had the most opportunities for me to help out the group since joining at the beginning of the semester.  My final project in Design IV was due at the end of March, so hopefully I will be able to continue to increase my involvement even more.  Still, what I have is an update from the “Eye Spy” group of Taylor and myself with regard to the upcoming Green Carnival.  We took pictures on Thursday afternoon of various objects being hidden in everyday imagery, took some pictures with minute changes between them, and even took some with blatant examples of littering (we picked up afterwards, of course).  We will have eight 18x24 boards for the Boyd kids to challenge themselves with next Thursday that I will have printed at the architecture building ASAP.  I was very excited to take charge of this Green Carnival activity, and it will certainly be something that Taylor and I can be proud of.

One of my challenges over the past month has been—as with most people—time.  As I previously stated, my final studio project was due at the end of March, and I felt that every second I had (waking or not) was being spent at the architecture building.  I was mentally and physically drained, and it was taking a toll on my ability to work on the project at hand and communicate with the people in the house.  Fortunately, the project is done, so I will hopefully be around more.  This may be why I feel that the most substantial thing I feel that I have to report on has occurred within the past week.  Still, in my opinion, the timing of the Green Carnival couldn’t have been better.  I am really looking forward to seeing what our overall product is at the Carnival next Thursday and at the rest of our events for the semester.

-Drew Kemp-Baird

Being Green in April

April is my favorite month this semester, because 1. the sun came out after 6 months, and 2. our beautiful campus looks green again! This means that our Think Green group can take advantage of the season and plan out activities for the Boyd kids that would have been otherwise more difficult to plan during the cold months. And this leads up to the Green Carnival, the big event with which we will culminate our project with teaching them to be green. We went to one of the activities that the Garden Club was hosting one night at Boyd, and got involved in several activities with the children, including making those Boyd booklets with recycled paper and cardboard, and planting avocado seeds with milk boxes. It was fun, and we got to see a slideshow of the really young children explaining what they have learned about being Green. It was definitely a fun experience.

But what really got me excited about planning the Green Carnival was going shopping for the materials for it. We got tons of crafts, glitter, glue, paint, materials, seeds, decorations, and prizes. We even got them some Easter candy. If I were a child, I'd be ecstatic to see all the cool things we will be doing with them at the Carnival. I'm looking forward to building the activity and to get the children all riled up about the event. This Sunday we are planning to go to the Garden and help plant something out, and considering how sunny it has been, I'm hoping for a great day. I'm excited, and looking forward to culminating the year with the Green Carnival, as well as planning our Summit Social soon.

The End is Nigh - Smith

     We haven't been able to spend as much time with the kids this semester as we did last semester, but that is because a large portion of our volunteering has been helping Central High School plan a carnival that will be taking place next week. At the beginning of the semester we were able to do a couple of in class presentations, and when it started warming up we had a green recess. We were also able to go to the Gardening Club kick off and help the kids plant avocado trees and make notebooks from recycled materials.

     The greatest experience so far this semester was the Gardening Club kick off. The kids really enjoyed making planters for their avocado seeds out of old milk cartons, and ate food that was grown locally. The garden they will be working in will grow vegetables that they can bring home and share with their families. The next day we had a green recess, and several of the kids who were at the Garden Club kick off came up and talked to us. They all seemed pretty excited about having their own garden. A couple of the girls even made their own garden on the playground that they named "Justin Bieber's Garden".

     The greatest challenge this month has definitely been time. April seems to be the month that all the professors decide to assign their hardest assignments, and so, for me at least, finding time to volunteer hasn't been the most easy of tasks. Besides all the homework I am also going to Powershift this weekend as a facilitator, and I have had to spend some time training for that, as well as helping Think Green plan the Earth Day festivities on Drury's campus. Fortunately for my grades, I have been able to finish my assignments and find time to volunteer.

     The last project we have for the year is going to be the BEST one. Our house has partnered with the Central High School Science Club to plan a carnival for Boyd Elementary on Thursday the 21st. There will be booths set up with games, crafts, and prizes for the kids to enjoy. Originally meetings were held once a week but as we have neared the date meetings have grown to twice a week. There is only one left before the big day, and everything looks like it will be finished in time. The kids are going to LOVE this!

Can you dig it?

Today we had another Green Carnival meeting at Central High School. I still think it worked out so nicely that we were able to collaborate with them for the Green Carnival. We brought the supplies we had bought earlier in the week. The students in the environmental club at Central High School meet have been meeting for the Green Carnival Tuesdays and Thursday after school. Any time someone from our Summit group is able to make it, we meet up with them and see what we can do to help.

At this meeting the students were preparing everything for the Green Carnival booths. We helped make some signs for the small zoo they’re going to have. Brandi said they think there will be owls and snakes and maybe a few other animals. We also helped prepare some bird feeders made out of empty 2-liter soda bottles and milk jugs. I think the kids will really enjoy the carnival, there’ll be so much going on! There’s a lot to get done before it happens in a week, but once it’s done it’ll be great.

Then on Sunday we’re going to help out in the Victim’s Memorial Garden. I hope the weather’s decent. We were going to plant flowers there yesterday, but it turns out that it’s supposed to get down to freezing this weekend! Which I’m not excited about and the flowers wouldn’t be either, I’m sure. But I think it’ll be a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

As always we have trouble managing all of our schedules so that we can all go to these events. The end of the semester is a hectic time for everyone. Stress is high, but I think we've kept our cool. I would say scheduling and communication is still something we all have difficulty with, but we’re learning! And living and Summit and sharing this experience has definitely helped us to learn to work better as a leadership team.

-Desirée

It's almost over :(

This month Think Green has been primarily focused on planning and preparing for the Green Carnival at Boyd on April 21st. We've been attending bi-weekly meetings at Central High School and discussing with the students how to best set-up the carnival and realize our goals for the event. A few days ago, we purchased all of the supplies for the carnival and exhausted much of our Summit budget :).

The greatest accomplishment made this month with Think Green at Boyd has been our attendance and commitment to the preparation of the Green Carnival. We have attended all but one of the many meetings they've held, and we've signed on to develop one of the booths as a group.

The biggest challenge we've faced is trying to work more events into our schedules this month. April is a super busy time for everyone, and it is especially difficult on our group because of Earth Day events on and off campus that we are involved in planning. We haven't had much time to do any green recesses or in-class presentations this month, but we're still making "green" strides in the right direction.

Obviously, the biggest event we have planned for the rest of the year is the Green Carnival. This will be an opportunity for all of our efforts to culminate into one big extravaganza! All of Boyd is invited (220 kids) and 20 + Central students will be there as well. It will be a great showing of our year-long project and a nice wrap-up!

Peace,
Amy