Washington Students Enjoy Lesson on Sustainability

There’s always something new at Washington Primary School. That’s what keeps learning fun. Recently, students collaboratively participated in innovative practices in sustainability using literature in the building’s library media center with library media specialist Rebecca Kraus.

After recalling and sharing prior knowledge of types of pollution, students viewed a short National Geographic video showing the devastating effect of plastic pollution on the environment and ecosystem.

“This led to a discussion and a read aloud of ‘One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia,’” Ms. Kraus said. “In this true story, students learned that Isatou and her community were surrounded by plastic bag pollution, leading to the deaths of livestock animals from ingestion as well as increased mosquito populations due to water pooling on the plastic bags. With help from her community, Isatou started a project to collect, clean, and repurpose the plastic bags into useful items. The collected plastic bags were transformed into something that could be crocheted, like yarn. This plastic bag yarn became purses and other useable items which Isatou was able to then sell for profit.”

After the story, third grade students practiced making their own plastic bag yarn. The pieces were connected into one giant ball of plastic bag yarn, which stretched across all of Washington School from the library to the kindergarten classrooms with unrolled yarn left to spare.

“To connect this experience with repurposing, students are now able to use the plastic bag yarn to create new, beautiful items such as friendship bracelets,” Ms. Kraus said. “This allowed students to consider where the plastic would be if we had not repurposed it. Students recognized that, as a group effort, we were able to take something that could have been trash and turn it into something our school makerspace can use to create new things.

Programs in Washington’s library media center strive to create experiences where students can be challenged to reflect upon real world problems and practice ways to solve them. “These are important 21st Century skills in creating a future which is sustainable, shifting the mindset from create, use and throw away to create, use and repurpose,” Ms. Kraus said.