My last day of student teaching was a lot harder than I expected. When I assigned the Recycling and Plastic Awareness Project I was nervous that not all of the students would be able to find something to create. However, I was pleased with the results I saw. Some of the kids had great ideas for alternate uses of recycling various materials; for instance, one of the students realized a used McDonalds beverage container could be utilized to hold markers or pencils. Below is an image of this repurposed object.

Food for Thought

How my lessons have effected me

I noticed that since I have been doing research on recycling and raising awareness on plastic in our environment, I have been much more conscious of the products I buy and where they will end up when I am finished with them. I enjoyed introducing artists who raise awareness about the effects of pollution in our environment to the class I am observing at.
A perfect example is the artist Chris Jordan.

 http://chrisjordan.com/gallery/midway/#CF000313%2018x24


 Based on a photograph by Bryant Austin, this 44x82’’ collage depicts 50,000 plastic bags, equal to the estimated number of pieces of floating plastic in every square mile in the world’s oceans.



It is interesting how it takes hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years for plastic to break down in most environments. This means a single bag can kill more then one animal over a very long lifetime on land and sea. As the bags decompose, tiny toxic bits seep into soils, lakes, rivers and the ocean's.