Ground Zero:  No More Landfills - A School Recycling Project

Middle school students will be motivated to investigate the development a
recycling program for their new school building.  The problem will be
created through either having the local waste management company close the
local landfill due to it's reaching capacity, or having the state board of
education use this new school site for show casing unique new programs to
help the community and the local environment.
Landfills and waste management will plague us until we (as a global
community) come to an agreement on how to deal with waste.  It is most
appropriate for school children to start within their own environment.  By
acquiring the tools and skills involved in solving this problem locally,
they will be better citizens and better able to use those skills to solve
larger problems in the future.

Students will form teams to investigate waste, and waste management.  They
will also contact other schools throughout the country (via e-mail) and
collect data on school recycling programs.  Do they exist?  How are they
managed? What percentage of waste has to be hauled away?  What are the
costs for running such a program?  The teams will be encouraged to develop
a 'Total School Recycle Program.'  That means to also investigate means of
disposing or recycling all the waste generated from their school building.
Can it be done?

We will begin by viewing videos and discussing the issues involved with
waste and the current problems associated with waste and it's management.
Various activities associated with waste, types of waste, contemporary and
historical perspectives on waste management,  what would it take to have
zero waste, etc.

Students will present the problem and their solutions to the problem by
creating a web page to share their cumulative ideas (their's and
collaborative partners throughout the country).  Students will develop a
rubric which reflects the scientific method.  The rubric will also reflect
the key points in developing a project of this kind.


Lemont - Our Rich Global Heritage

Yes, we want to show the citizens of the world the rich heritage of the
town of Lemont.  Motivated by the Historical Society of Lemont and it's
attempts to go on line students will form groups to investigate the rich
heritage of Lemont.  The town of Lemont, at one time,  was home to native
Americans, pioneers, explorers and miners.  It now is home to numerous
ethnic groups and has 3 Catholic parishes along with a Hindu temple.  The
number of ESL children is about 2%, with the European languages being the
primary language.

The Historical Society wishes to develop a partnership with the middle
school in Lemont.  The society wants to develop a web page highlighting the
rich history, architecture of it's buildings, and ethnic backgrounds of
it's inhabitants.  In order to take on such a large task the society wants
to have the students in the district help them investigate both locally and
globally.  Locally we will be sending home surveys and globally we hope to
use the Internet to investigate the various ethnic groups and cultures that
exist in Lemont.  Some groups of students will be involved in investigating
the rich American heritage of Lemont: Native American Indians, mining and
settlers of the past.

Questions to be investigated:  Why did you come to the town of Lemont?
What did you hope to gain from moving to this region?  How did Native
Americans impact this unique area?  What is the largest concentration of
European-Americans in town?  How many languages are spoken here?

We hope that the students will gain a better understanding of the richness
of this area southwest of Chicago.  We hope that students will learn about
various cultures and ethnic groups, about the Native Americans that
predominated at one time in this area, the impact of the mining industry on
our area.  All these topics will enrich our curriculum.

The technology will be important in order to share with the rest of the
world our discoveries of small pieces of the world that exist in this
community.  We hope the technology will help with both research and show
casing our findings to the world.