Through this project we hope to instill a sense of responsibility in our students to take care of our campus and to notice the hard work that goes into keeping our environment looking the way it does. We also want to help teach them about what it means to be a good community member.
We have a huge Lower School (K-4) event each year called Capture the Campus and this is a fun event to help students feel comfortable on all parts of our campus. We have a middle school as well, but during this event those students and teachers are away on class trips. Thus, Lower School has the campus to ourselves. For years we have had many exciting and out-of-the-ordinary events during this week, and this year we added a service component because service is really important at our school. Each grade level selected a project that helped our campus or community in some way. We wanted to post the project here because two of our third graders recently went to a talk by Jane Goodall and were inspired to do a Roots and Shoots project. Our third graders selected the campus beautification project and spent a significant amount of time working to clean our campus. Many of them also spread mulch around our landscaping. Our kindergartners spent time picking up trash around our campus. We have about 21 acres of property, including wooded areas and a creek where many native species live. Thus, keeping our property clean and taken care of directly impacts how the native species are doing. First grade developed relationships with our community neighbors. They made signs for them, visited, and even sung a song to help strengthen our relationship with our neighbors. Second grade worked to make signs, letters, and art to welcome students from other schools who will be on our campus this summer for our Horizons Austin Trinity program. Collecting, sorting, and returning lost and found items was a fourth grade projects, and wow does that help our community in more ways than you might think. Plus, we are hoping it help students realized how important it was to be responsible with their own items. Fourth grade also designed and decorated stationary to give to faculty for all the letters they need to write throughout the year. Our Mandarin classes teamed up with our technology classes to write and deliver thank you notes to folks on campus who are instrumental in the daily running of the school, but who the children do not see very often. Gratitude is a trait we are hoping to instill in our students. Singing telegrams were delivered by some of our second graders in music class to staff members who have helped behind the scenes prepare for all of our Lower School musicals.
