Earth Day

Today marked the 40th anniversary of Earth Day! In honor of this special event, teachers at our school were charged with going "paper free" for a whole day. Some teachers went all out by not using ANY paper, with students solely using overhead transparencies, computers for assignments, or activities outside that required them to move and learn. Others allowed students to use papers from recycling bins around the building or recycled newspapers for posters. The idea was to use no NEW paper all day today.

We had a paper-free day in the media center! Four 6th grade classes came through for book circulation. Since our card catalog is Internet-based, students look up books of interest online, then find them on the shelves. Our baskets of scrap paper and pencils located at each Search Station already met the requirements of the day, since we recycle extra worksheets and papers we don't need anymore to cut into scrap paper.

Mrs. C's classes used the computers all period and learned how to use NoodleTools, an online bibliography generator we subscribe to. Students already had their source information filled in on their Source Notes sheets from when they researched their Holocaust topic a few weeks ago. Today, they inputted their source information into NoodleTools and saved their entries as a bibliography in Microsoft Word. This program is amazing because it formats each student's entry with the correct MLA style, including correct placement of periods, commas, italicized words, etc. How I wish I had this resource when I was in school!

How did you celebrate Earth Day?

-Ms. Z