Gretchen Hanna an elementary teacher at South Callaway Elementary received a $500 grant for the Missouri Retired Teachers Association Wednesday.
Hanna is using the grant to alleviate the costs of her "Recycling for a Greener World" program for the third through fifth grade students. Hanna decided to start the program this year in order to educate the students about recycling different materials. Since it's in the beginning stages Hanna started off with teaching the third grade students about recycling paper and cardboard products, which they're still learning as some plastic items end up in the recycling bins, Hanna said.
"Children are the most impressionable and we need to instill (recycling) while they're young because they may not have a choice," Hanna said. "It's a choice now, but I think in the future it's not going to be a choice and we should educate them and get them on board for what the future holds."
Hanna and other teachers are using the program to teach the students leadership skills. Later in the year representatives from the different grade levels will be responsible for discussing and sharing recycling information with their other classmates. The school follows a set of seven principals that help the students to become leaders and make "healthy, happy choices," which Hanna said will be applied through the course of the recycling program.
The first three principles - be proactive, begin with the end in mind and put first things first - Hanna hopes will play as the root of the program to teach the students about creating a plan and setting priorities while leading the recycling program. Later, the principles, which focus on working with others, will come into play as the students move onto recycling plastics and aluminum cans.
Hanna hopes that the recycled tabs from the aluminum cans can be used to raise and donate money to the Ronald McDonald House. She believes this will drive home the principle about setting goals, while also teaching the children their choices make a difference.
"I think that we're a throw-away society and that we should be more conscientious and reduce the waste we produce," Hanna said. "Recycling is more efficient now than it was 20 years ago and it's part of what's making the world go round."
Although Hanna has began to move forward with the program, there are details that remain to be worked. She hopes to have a unit teaching the children about composting and later on learn how to build "inventions" using recycled materials. She wants to eventually get the program to be integrated into the school's system so that even the kitchen is utilizing the recycling receptacles provided. At the end of the year, she wants to host an Earth Day event as an opportunity for the students to teach kindergarten through second-grade students about recycling.
"We want them to have the event so they can share what we've done throughout the year and be proud of it," Hanna said.
Hanna plans to use the grant money to purchase liners and recycling receptacles for the third, fourth and fifth-grade classrooms.