Social Action Project Reflections

We survived our project night! The kids had a great turn-out on Thursday night--many people came to see their projects and listen to what they had to say about issues they care about. My face hurt so bad at the end of the night from smiling---I was SO happy for them!

The Keith County News published an excellent article about the kids and their projects, and KNOP News from North Platte came out on Thursday to interview us. Our story will be on Monday night's news...I'll post the link on Monday night.

I loved seeing how invested some of my students were in their projects---and I only had one student not show at the project night. This unit was definitely successful enough to do it again next year.

Here are a few pictures of the kids and captions about their projects:

These guys created a presentation on school shootings. They researched recent school shootings, then they interviewed students, teachers, and administrators to hear their thoughts on the safety of our own building and what we can do to prevent a tragedy like this in our own building. They also passed out an article from the North Platte Telegraph that outlined details of LB5166.

These twin boys scooped all the sidewalks in their neighborhood during our last snowstorm.

Three ladies sold food to raise money for the Perkins County Humane Society. Below is the main doctor from the PCHS with her dog (who was adopted from the shelter!); I was so impressed that the girls thought to invite her and her dog to our project night.

These five ladies put together a cancer walk (it's tonight at our track). I'm amazed at how organized and into this they are. The banner hanging behind them is a mural that one of the girls made to help advertise for the event. They spoke with our AD to organize it all, gathered donations (water, food, and prizes to raffle off), made ribbons for people to wear to remember those affected by cancer, hung fliers around town to advertise for their walk, and created a poster to raise awareness for cancer. These girls are 14 and 15! They've shown more initiative than many adults I know!

These strapping young men did an awareness project on recycling.

Two students put on a car-care clinic at one of the car dealerships teaching students how to change a tire and the oil.

These girls did a presentation on the importance of taking education seriously. For the action portion of their project, they worked with our guidance counselor and created certificates and small bags of candy to hand out to students who improved their GPA from 1st-2nd quarter.

The two students in the middle had a supply drive for Sandhills Crisis Intervention Program. They met with a volunteer coordinator to come up with a plan of attack, and then went door to door gathering supplies.

This isn't the greatest picture, but these two guys went door to door collecting food for the food pantry. They collected over 100 items in just a few hours!

This student had a clothing drive to gather clothes and other supplies for foster families. They have been a foster family for quite awhile, and she noticed that often the kids come to them with not much more than the clothes on their backs. So...she did something about it! She set up drop-boxes at a few locations around town and hung flyers and ended up gathering quite a few donations!

A table of students

These two spent a few class periods baking cookies with the special education students and then sold them at the project night to help them raise funds to buy a new coffee pot for their department.

These lovely ladies made and sold hemp bracelets with purple beads to raise funds and awareness for teen dating violence (February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month).

This student interviewed several people and created an iMovie on the importance of parents spending time with their children.

This student created a presentation to help eliminate negative stereotypes of our local skatepark. It was an incredible presentation!