The These Come From Trees Education Challenge
A little more than a year ago, an enterprising student from Aragon High School up here in the Bay Area sent an email to us asking if we could provide him with complimentary stickers, as his school might not have the budget to buy stickers (and he, as a student, might not be able to navigate the ins and outs of purchasing via the school).
We thought it was a great idea, and not only did we set him up, but we opened up the offer more broadly to any K-12 organization interested. We call it the These Come From Trees Education Challenge.
All we ask is that the interested participant:
- Figure out how many stickers they need for their school (How many paper towel dispensers in how many bathrooms? How many photocopiers?)
- Make sure that they get permission from their principal or facilities administrator.
- Submit your information using this web form to get the ball rolling!
Lesson Plans for These Come From Trees
At the same time, there are some opportunities that can take a good idea, like These Come From Trees at your school, and make it better.
I asked some of the teachers who had taken advantage of our Education Challenge what they did to make the experience even more educational, and these were some of the ideas that they came back with. Maybe you can take advantage at your own school?
- Document your deployment of TCFT Stickers: Take pictures of your class deploying them. Maybe even video. Put together a video of your class deploying the stickers and publish it to YouTube. We'll embed it in this blog!
- Or even create your own blog: Take the pictures you took, and publish them on your own blog. We'll link to you!
- What about making a lesson out of the stickers, even aside from the deployment?
- Conservation: Do a lesson around how "Reduce" can be as big a part of conservation as "Recycle." What else can be reduced even before we have a chance to recycle it?
- Math: Can you do experiments around how much paper the stickers are saving? Test before and after they go up. Do estimations of how many paper towels get used at your school, in your district, in your state. Do estimations of how many paper towels could be saved in your school, district, and state. How many trees is that?
- Business: Explain the idea of "return on investment" and how using some paper now (the sticker) can save more later. How long until the investment is paid back? How about for your whole school?
These Come From Trees Lesson Plans