Western Coventry Elementary School, Western Coventry, Rhode Island Advisor: Kerri Luchka Link to a shortened video production of Splish, Splash

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1 Westie s Green Team Western Coventry Elementary School, Western Coventry, Rhode Island Advisor: Kerri Luchka Link to a shortened video production of Splish, Splash Hydropower! SUMMARY: This year was an exciting year for Western Coventry Fifth Graders. We started a leadership team and continued to mold it throughout the year. We worked to determine our goals, projects and purpose in our school and local community. We named our group Westie s Green Team partly due to our school mascot, Westie the Wise Owl, and partly for our work and effort to move our school and community toward more greener practices realizing that energy education was key in this.

2 SUMMARY (Continued) From there, we worked to learn the science of energy, researched energy sources and ways to conserve energy. We started a Westie s Green Team newsletter which detailed all of our findings in an effort to educate others. We attended and held community events to inspire and educate our community about the need for conservation. Our main goal is to grow our community garden and to help others to understand that locally grown foods help to reduce transportation fuels and emissions. Lastly, we encourage others in our building to find small ways to reduce our ecological footprint. Turning off lights, recycling, gardening and conservation are just some of the things we have advocated for. We believe kids can do little things that make a big difference. We Represent Seeds of Hope

3 Building a Team of Leaders Goal: Create a presence and identity within our school community. Activities and Tasks: First, we needed to identify our goals, then brand it with a team logo and name. One of our team members, drew up a picture of an owl, while the rest of us tried to name our group. We blended our school mascot, Westie the Wise Owl, with our vision for our team and came up with Westie s Green Team. Then we started to make our presence known within our school community. Resources: Company to print T-Shirts Drawing competition between members to come up with our signature logo. Understanding of what going green meant in order to make sure that it made sense based on our goals. Student Leadership: We took the initiative to develop our name and logo that reflect the goals of our leadership team. We learned to compromise and work together to establish our first steps. Evaluation: Successful design, team name and logo as seen here.

4 Green Team Members Publish a Newsletters Goal: To continue our research into forms and sources of energy, and energy conservation in order to publish a school wide newsletter to help educate others about these important energy matters. Activities and Tasks: After we learned about the forms and sources of energy and energy conservation, we conducted interviews, collected data and wrote up articles to share with our Western Community. The Westie s Green Team Newsletter will be published online as well as in print to approximately 500 people. Student Leadership: We hoped to reach all of the members of our Western Community with our newsletter. Each member of the Green Team had a special assignment. We needed to make sure we each did our parts to make our publication a success! Resources: NEED Elementary Energy Infobook NEED Energy Sources Online Resources Evaluation: Achievement of this goal was evident in written summaries that were reviewed and published by our team advisor. There was also positive feed back and more seed sales after our publication reached our intended audience. Working hard to spread a message!

5 Working extremely hard to share our work with the community. Published four newsletters this year!

6 Green Team researches and reports on the sources of energy. These write ups appear in our Newsletters: Renewable Resources Edition and Nonrenewable Resources Editions.

7 Grow a Community Garden Goal: To continue to grow and foster interest in Western s Community Garden Activities and Tasks: We know that kids can make a difference with each choice we make. We try to practice what we preach by reducing our ecological foot print and energy consumption. We planted a vegetable garden in the spring, take on watering duties during the summer and harvest each fall. Locally grown foods reduce the amount of transportation fuels needed and emissions that are produced. Our goal is to produce enough food to donate to the Rhode Island Food Bank. Each small choice will make a big difference in the end. Student Leadership: Green Team members helped to plant the garden and care for it. This year Green Team members donated 44 pounds of sweet potatoes to Rhode Island Food Bank. Green Team members sold seeds at the Western Coventry Santa Sale in an effort to raise awareness of the benefits of buying local and the benefits of planting community gardens. Green Team members sold Western Coventry grown seeds to members of the community. Resources: The Scituate High School NEED Club provides us with many plants for our gardens. Evaluation: Beautiful gardens that yield food and seeds. Over $200 raised from seed sales that will help us to keep our gardens growing!

8 Harvest Time!

9 Advantages of Growing a Garden and Seed Sale! Santa Sale

10 The Lorax Family Movie Night and Poster Contest in Honor of Earth Day Goals: To let members of the Western community know who we are and teach about the importance of energy conservation; to have fun! Activities and Tasks: We organized a poster contest for all of the students in K- at Western Coventry The poster s theme was What Can Kids Do To Make the Earth A Better Place or How Can You Save Energy Families came to the Green Team s Movie Night in order to learn more about the Green Team, hear more about energy conservation and to vote on the best poster in each grade. We held another seed sale and passed out a pamphlet detailing the eco-lessons of the Lorax and, of course, enjoyed the movie presentation of the Lorax. Resources: Lorax Movie Seeds Unless Stones Popcorn and Lorax Juice Eco-lessons of the Lorax Pamphlet Welcome Speech Splish, Splash, Hydropower Movie NEED Energy on Stage (see video clip of this production by Westie s Green Team) Student Leadership: The Green Team facilitated this entire event. We welcomed families, facilitated the poster contest judging and introduced the Green Team to the Western Coventry community. Emma gave a speech on choices we all make that would influence our ecology. The Green Team s presentation of Splish, Slash Hydropower was presented prior to the Lorax movie. During the movie, Western seeds and Unless stones were sold to benefit the continued growing of our community garden. Evaluation: All of the families commented on how this was a great event. It may be something we do each year prior to Earth Day!

11 Poster Contest and Family Movie Night!

12 Learning About the Science of Energy Goal: To learn about the Science of Energy Sources and Forms of Energy. Activities and Tasks: We set up stations that involved learning about elastic potential energy to motion energy, the different forms and sources of energy, chemical potential energy to thermal energy, radiant energy to electrical energy, radiant energy to thermal energy, chemical potential energy to electrical energy, motion to electrical energy, electrical energy to motion, and chemical potential energy to radiant energy. Student Leadership: Working together as a team to achieve this learning goal was essential. Team leaders were established and then we delegated roles contingent upon the activity. Resources: The NEED Science of Energy Kit Evaluation: Achievement of this goal was evident in science notebooks and Google Slides that we developed to teach others. Our Google Slides were evaluated using a rubric.

13 Western Coventry s Energy Expo Goal: To host an Energy Expo for fifth grade students at Western Coventry Elementary School. Activities and Tasks: We organized eight stations that showed many forms of energy and energy transformations. The stations set up involved learning about elastic potential energy to motion energy, the different forms and sources of energy, chemical potential energy to thermal energy, radiant energy to electrical energy, radiant energy to thermal energy, chemical potential energy to electrical energy, motion to electrical energy, electrical energy to motion, and chemical potential energy to radiant energy. Student Leadership: In teams of one or two, we facilitated an energy station and presented to our fellow fifth grade friends. We learned all the science of energy in advance so that we were able to teach our peers. The Green Team facilitated the learning throughout the Energy Expo. We taught three fifth grade classes reaching 57 students over the course of one day (We each taught our station 24 times and we were exhausted by the end!) Resources: The resources we used were the NEED Science of Energy Kits that were supplied by Scituate High School. One other important resource was the NEED Energy Expo e- Publication. Evaluation: Achievement of this goal, was evidenced in our own very successful Energy Expo.

14 Energy Expo 2016!

15 Hours Contributed by Westie s Green Team Task Number of Hours Number of People Participating Total Number of Hours Team Meetings Before School/Recess Santa Sale Event Planting/Caring and Harvesting Gardens Delivering Sweet Potatoes to Rhode Island Food Bank Independent Research and Writing Articles for Green Team Publications Energy Expo Filming Splish, Splash Hydropower Energy Poster Contest Green Team s Family Movie Night Total: 873.5