robbby's monday minute

Last Thursday my 3rd hour class went to the Topeka water festival and it was a day that we did not even have school. Before we got there, I had the feeling it was gonna be lame and unfun, and even somewhat hard. I thought it would be hard and unfun to go to something like this especially since I would have rather been at home asleep. However, believe it or not, it was actually a good day. I got to teach and even walk around to see other peoples presentations. We even had a small water fight and cici's pizza for lunch. After the water festival ended, we packed up and went home. I felt like it was an over all good day rather than as horrible day like I thought it would be at first. We could have made it better if we had had more time to do it, and if we had prepared more. My favorite part was the water fight we had and my least favorite thing was that the kids thought i peed myself..... :O

Bring Your Own Bag script for the Topeka Water Festival

Here is what we have worked up to present at the Topeka Water Festival.  It is an exchange between two JDLA presenters with open questions to our audience.  We only have twenty minutes with 20-25 fourth graders and we want to allow then to decorate their new reusable bags so our presentation is pretty short.  Here it is…..

Hello! Welcome to our station!! We are from John Dewey Learning Academy and we have a great project for you today but first ….

Who thinks plastic bags are bad for the environment??

Why?

You are correct! Plastic bags are bad for the environment because they turn into litter. The litter is pretty ugly but also, since plastic bags never bio-degrade (turn into dirt) they get ripped up and shredded and sometimes look like food to animals. When the animals eat the plastic they get sick or die.

Plastic bags are also bad for the environment because they are made from oil. Oil is a non-renewable resource. Making plastic bags uses up a lot of energy, energy comes from Natural Gas, another non-renewable resource.

Who thinks paper grocery bags are bad for the environment??

Why?

Paper bags are bad for the environment even though they are technically bio-degradable they don’t bio-degrade easily. When they go into a land fill they don’t degrade instead they release methane gas into our environment. Also, the energy used to make the paper into a bag is excessive when we really don’t need paper bags to hold our groceries.

What is a non-renewable resource?

Yes! Non-renewable means it is naturally occurring and that we can’t make any more of it and we can’t recycle and reuse it after the first time.

What would happen if we run out?

If we use up our natural resources on things that aren’t really important to our world we won’t have resources for important things like making and harvesting food, heating and lighting our homes and driving to our jobs! If we can’t make more of something then we should be really careful about how we use it. This includes all of our non-renewable resources – oil, natural gas, coal – fossil fuels.

Does anyone actually really need plastic bags?

Why do we have them if we don’t really need them??

You are all right on target! We hope that this has given you some things to think about today. We hope that you can help us change the world by taking a re-usable bag home with you today! Tell other people about what you have learned and learn more – do some internet research on your own about this issue. Remember, don’t use up non-renewable resources on things that you don’t really need. Use reusable bags to shop!

Now, we want each of you to take a reusable bag and use these sharpies to decorate and personalize them. You MUST put your name on the bag somewhere. We don’t have a lot of time but we would like you to personalize your bags with a theme of reduce, reuse, recycle or the environment. We have some templates of the earth, the recycle symbol, peace sign and some animals. Use your bag to make a statement about not using plastic bags!

Please remember, if you aren’t finished today you can finish at home with sharpies. Don’t use washable markers, they wash off! Also, please make sure the markers get their lids back on tightly when you are finished!

MONDAY MINUTE

We didn’t have school on Friday so I can’t say that we prepped for our water festival, but I can say that we went to The Topeka Water Festival on Thursday. We went there to teach some fourth and fifth graders about why plastic and paper bags are bad. It was a lot of fun because the little kids got very engaged and really liked it. we taught almost 200 kids about this subject. we were there from 9:00 A.M. till 2:00 P.M.

I was kind of nervous at the start of the water fest, but it got all better after the first group of youngsters. At first I thought it would be a little more serious but at once i saw that everyone there was here to have a good time and learn. Teaching the kids and seeing them get engaged made it all the more fun.

After the Water Fest I felt great because it was fun teaching the little kids and seeing them having a good time learning.

I don’t think that there was anything that I could have done better, and the only thing I would have done differently was to try and get them a little more engaged in the discussions .

my favorite part was watching them create their different designs for their bags, the way they had creativity to make different forms of saying that plastic bags are bad and you should recycle. The worst part was having to leave.

Jon B

monday minute

Thursday, at the Topeka Water Festival, Robby, Jon and I and two staff got the chance to help 4th graders to understand why plastic bag are bad for the environment.  It was pretty fun.  Before the water festival I was kind of nerves.  In the beginning I thought it was going to be boring, but it was pretty fun got to meet some new people.  I felt pretty good from helping people especial little kids.  I had a pretty fun day at the Topeka Water Festival At Garfield park.

The Fish Guy!

Friday September 17, 2010 JDLA Students meet up with TJ "The Fish Guy" at Lake Perry. 

Students enjoyed learning about types of fish, and about fish anatomy.  Fish have air bladdders that help them control their depth in the water.  TJ's boat was an Electro fishing boat.  The things you see in the front are sending electric current into the water.  This method is only legal for Department of Wildlife personnel.  It doesn't kill the fish but it really stuns them.  Then the fish guy counts them and checks them for health.  JDLA students enjoyed learning about fish!

Working on our Blogs! Pictures!

Jacob and Jon working in our classroom. 

The view from Denise!

WOW!!  We have been really busy with JDLA Water Festival business these last weeks.  Each of the three groups that will be presenting have been working hard.  We will have Gooey Garbage - Jon's group about landfills, Water Olympics - about the properties of water with hands on action games and Bring Your Own Bag - about why plastic bags are bad for the environment (please note:  paper bags are even worse!)  My group is the "organize and shlep" group.  Weedwhacking, painting, lifting and hauling are a big part of the Water Festival.  We also made the schedule and map of our rotation.  Each group is pretty close to ready but we have no more Friday's before the Festival so we will take time out from class once this week 9/22 and once next week 9/29 to practice and refine. 

Our Service Learning class is busy getting ready to visit and present Bring Your Own Bag at the Topeka Water Festival.  We will do ten presentations to approximately 250 fourth graders!  Each presentation is only 20 minutes long and our hands on component is them decorating their very own bag.  Should be pretty fun.  We decided to divide our group of 4 students into two so that we can tag team our presentations and explore the fest on our down time.  There are going to be 33 different stations so we will get to see some new things. 

The Monday Minutes written by Jon and Robby reference our last Friday's activity.  The fish guy is actually the Fish Biologist from the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks.  TJ or Kirk is pretty awesome.  He really engages his audience regardless of age with his knowledge about fish and the environment.  He will be one of the special presenters at the JDLA festival but I really wanted the JDLA students to have the chance to meet him and hear his presentation.  They all seemed to be pretty interested in it.  He described not only the fish that we were finding but his own story of finding his professional niche'.  TJ explained that when he graduated from high school he headed out to K-State to major in Engineering but he didn't do too well in school because he spent all his time hunting and fishing.  After a look at the K-State catalog, he decided that it would be better to do something that he really liked to do.  What an excellent message to the JDLA students!  Do what you love as your job and you will have a better chance at being happy in life! 

SO.... all the service learning projects are currently being juggled effectively.  Most of the time anyway, each day is a day filled with multi-tasking and busyness but we are all learning as we go!! 

Denise

robbys monday min.

          Last Friday the whole school split up into groups during the morning half of the school day. we went out to the lake and were taught about fish by the fish guy. He taught us about the different kinds of fish and even went out on the boat and shocked the water.  He proceeded to capture the shocked and paralyzed fish. He brought quite a few different fish back ashore and we got to touch and feel the fishes. There was a baby carp, some crappie, and this really weird fish called a sauger that had huge sharp teeth.

          During the second half of the day, we all had our normal groups that we usually have in the morning. I'm in Denise's class and we organize and set up the jdla water festival. we went out to the water festival site and weed whacked and swept out the bathrooms.  We also loaded all the water that will be needed for the water festival itself. Overall, it was a really fun day and it ended well.!

MONDAY MINUTE(ON TUESDAY)

Last Friday we went to Perry Lake and met the fish guy who’s name is Kirk.  It was pretty cool and i loved it. He was there to tell us about the different fish populations in Lake Perry. He took two people out on his boat to shock fish and catch them, and me being lucky was one of them!
He explained the different kind of fish and how they work with our environment. After that my afternoon group went on a hike until lunch.
When we got back and had lunch we went to our morning groups(in the afternoon) and we worked on our presentation about the landfill.


Jon B

Why are Plastic Grocery Bags Bad?

Plastic bags are not biodegradeable. They clog water ways, spoil the landscape, and end up in landfills where they take over 10,000 years or more to break down inot even smaller particles that continue to pollute the soil and water.

           Litter - can be seen everywhere

• Side of the road
• Hanging from trees, bushes, and stuck to fences 
• Major roadside litter

            Sea Animals

• Many plastic grocery bags end up in the Ocean
• Ingested by sea animals- other animals are strangled or suffocated  by the bags

           Landfills

• The number of bags used adds up to a significant presence in the landfill

           Cheap

• Since they are so inexpensive stores overuse them
• 1 or 2 bags are significant
• but grocery clerks use twice hat many
• The more bags are overused the more damage to environment

         In Our Water

• Bags often end up in Streams, Rivers, and Lakes
• As they sit there in the water tiny toxic bits seep out of them and into our groundwater

          Pollution

• Manufacturing process of plastic bags contributes to the pollution of the environment
• Plastic bags require refined oil or natural gas which damages the environment when exracted

  I got this information from
http://www.ehow.com/facts_5250523_plastic-grocery-bags-bad-environment_.html  
 

Amanda Lynn

JON’S MONDAY MINUTE

Well, here it is Monday and I gotta talk about my Friday group and how we were preparing for the Water Festival. Simply we worked on our project about landfills and how they work and effect our environment. My job was to come up with questions to ask the little kids we will be working with. The questions are about water, where it comes from, how pollution affects it, and how and why our ground water is important for drinking.

jacob bio

My name is Jacob I'm 17 years old.  I'm in the 12th grade but to graduate in 2011 I have to pass all my classes.  I was born on June 3rd, 1993 in Lawrence Kansas. At age 4 I was adopted into a good family.  My interests are hanging out with friends, rap, music, poetry.  Old school rap examples: Tupac, Biggie, Nas, Jay-z.  For activities I used to ride my bike almost every day to town. I like to rap with friends, and write poetry.  I sometimes fear messing up and getting kicked out of JDLA like I got kicked out of Perry-Lecompton high school.  The highlight of my life was on 12-17-1997 when I was adopted into a great family.
I hope to graduate from JDLA and go to a community college and then go to Kansas university and study chemical engineering.  My dream is to be come a rapper with my friend of mine.  I wish life was easy but its not so I'm used to it.

MONDAY MINUTE(ON TUESDAY)

Hello it’s Jon, and I'm going to talk about what i did last Friday in preparation for the Water Fest. The group i was in we went on a little field trip to the Topeka Waste Management Facility and we learned about the way they manage the wastes and use the methane produced from the waste to make energy that can be distributed to Weststar Energy for electricity.
The way they do this is that they take the methane, suck it up through a hose, burn it then cool it , compress it, then filter it and burn it again in large engines. they have several engines that each put out enough energy to power seven-thousand homes each. This is  i think a good way to recycle some of the waste that we produce.

This ties into the Water Festival because we are learning how the waste we produce effects the envirnment around us. Once we have learned about this, on the day of the Water Festival we will take this knowledge and teach it to younger children from different school district. We will teach them how it is importnat to use the three R's of waste- Reuse, Reduce, and RECYCLE. Doing this will help the kids become interested in what is going on around us and I hope that they will take the knowledge that they gain from the hands on activites that we do with them and put it to use.

Jon Blevins

roberts monday minute

        Last Friday my Friday group went out to the lake to pick up sticks and weed eat. We hauled 2 trailer full of wood and weed eated alot of grass. We ended up hauling some hay bails as well. Some of the wood was so big that we could not haul it away and alternatively had to move it to the side. The reason we did all this clean up was to clear the walk ways for the presenters to be able to get around.

Amanda's Poem

I am Amanda and i wrote a poem in Creative Wrighting Class.

Dear Freind,

Remember I'll always be here for ya, yeah freind I'm gunna be close no matter how far I am, ya say your daddy bleeds well I bet he bleeds words that mean the most so pay attention to him, I just want ya to know I'm payying attention to ya, our freindship means the world to ya, and when ya was in elementary and those guys hit those girls guess where they'll be going, yeah to the penitentiary one day, then ya won't have to worry, and I'll still be here waitin to hear from ya.


Amanda


 

roberts biography

       Hi, my name is Robert. I am 17 years old and I'm a senior in high school. I've been going to JDLA for 3 years now and have become quite fond of this school. We always have all kinds of fun at JDLA and we are a school that is all about service learning. I will graduate in late may of 2011 and will hopefully go onto voe-tech to become a computer technician.

        I was born in Selina Kansas, and then as far as I know, put into foster care because my biological birth mom was a drug and alcohol addict and a thief. She went to prison as far as I know. I then moved to Michigan to live with my biological aunt and uncle. Shortly after moving to Michigan i was adopted into the family i live with now. I've lived with my new family science i was 4 years old.

      My interests include; riding bikes, exercising, hanging with friends, and technology. I ride 4 miles on my bike every other day and exercise 20-40 minuets every day. I also spend allot of time on the phone and hanging with my friends. One of the main things i fear are spiders. I'm extremely arachnophobic. My goal in life is to get a degree in computer technology and get a great paying job with computers.

    

My Bio

Jon Blevins

14 Years Old

9th Grade

Birth date: November 7th 1995

Birth Town:Tulsa, Oklahoma

Current Residence: Ozawkie, KS

Interest: Heavy metal music, poetry, books by Stephan King, Theology, and Spiritualism

Activities: I enjoy skateboarding, writing music and poetry, reading, and video gaming

Fears: not going to college and not getting a good job

Highlights of life: Getting a job, having a brother and sister, and going to church

I was born November 7th of 1995, in Oklahoma. The name of the city was Tulsa.  I only lived there for two weeks, then i moved up here to Kansas and lived in Lawrence for a while.

My main interest are artistic. I enjoy writing music and poetry because its a good way for me to get out what I’m feeling. I like riding on my large  skateboard in my spare time or whenever i get a chance. my other interests are Theology and Spiritualism.

Activities that i do are skateboarding, reading, writing music and poetry, and listening to heavy metal music. Heavy metal music is my favorite because i like music that gets me pumped and gets my adrenaline flowing.

My only fears are not going to college and not getting a good job.

Highlights  of my life would be getting myself a job, gaining a brother and sister, and finding a good church.

Goals: My hopes in life are to get a good job after college, and getting enough money to get my grandparents a good retirement.

My dreams are to become a famous writer and start a heavy metal band.

My wishes are to have a family, a nice home, and a college degree.

Amanda Bio

Hi, My name is Amanda. I’m 18 years old. I’m a senior in high school. I was born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma on January 10th in 1992. My highlight of my whole life is getting back together with my parents after nine years of not being with them. My interest are Sports such as track and cross country, I ran both for 3 years. I also love playing games on the computer and watching movies. I am the only daughter of Martha and Thomas i have two older brothers Dustin and Raymond.

My Hope in life is to get graduated on time like my dad he is the only one in my family to graduate. I want to be like my dad and graduate both my brothers dropped out their freshman year. My dream is to go to college for business and get a good job because I’d be the only one in my family to go to college, my dad had the chance but he stayed with the family business. My wishes in life is to finish my life to the fullest and to do everything I’ve ever wanted to do in life and then I’d do it.

Preparing!!

WOW!  Our class is getting ready for the Topeka Water Festival!  It is on Thursday September 23rd, which is magically NOT a regular school day!  Boo!!  Happily, my students are AWESOME and have agreed to come to school on a non-school day, travel to Topeka and make a presentation to elementary students!  Yay!  I learned yesterday that we will see somewhere around 200-250 youth on the 23rd - there will be ten sessions so that would be between 20-25 kids pers session.  That is HUGE!  Our presentation will be about why reusable grocery bags are significant to the environment.  Each participant will receive a bag to decorate and take home. 

This is going to be BIG I am excited to have the opportunity to take these students to this event.  They are all willing to go but they aren't entirely sure what they are getting themselves into!  It will be a long day but I think it will also be a very rewarding day for them!  That's my plan anyway!  Tune in for the ongoing saga and (eventually) pictures of the Topeka Water Festival!!

Denise