Innovation Results from Garbage

As part of a project to generate environmental awareness for Earth Day, third graders at Meadowlark Elementary School were challenged by their teacher, Mrs. Amanda Davies, to find a piece of "garbage" and turn it into something repurposed and usable.

This open-ended project that Davies has used successfully in the past carries two basic objectives: "to ignite the possibilities in creativity and to lend awareness to preserving the Earth." Her students impressed her with their creative problem-solving and innovation.

Some of the third graders created the fairly typical: bird houses assembled from scrap wood, planters or feed scoops and containers made from discarded Solo cups or plastic containers, and boxes decorated and fashioned with dividers to store accessories or special collected items.

Others moved beyond the expected. For example, Matthew Thompson used an Arrowhead water jug to make a livestock waterer. Because his family recently acquired baby chicks and needed a method for watering them, Thompson responded with his invention. No picture was readily available because the waterer was already in use. His idea confirms that necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

Also using repurposed plastic bottles, Teagan Britt created a two-minute timer, and Tyrus Seymour crafted a system for bathing a pet or small animal. Seymour's design not only featured dispensers for shampoo and conditioner, but provided for both a wash and a rinse cycle.

One of the students, however, might be bound for a career in game development. Maysen Olson designed a game in which players use air blown through a straw to shuttle a paper wad while navigating some obstacles to reach a final goal. Their teacher reports that third graders enjoyed playing the game and directing the wad through a toilet paper cardboard tunnel and into a cup. The process resembled obstacle golf on a miniature course.

Hadley Wicks and Alexis Elias both produced something from already recycled material. For their creations, each selected polypropylene plastic baling twine, which is often manufactured from recycled High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) plastics, like empty milk jugs. Wicks braided the twine and fashioned it to create a wall hanging featuring her brand while Elias braided a lead rope and attached it to a halter, which she will use on her 4-H heifer breeding project for the Blaine County Fair.

Davies complimented her students' ingenuity and problem-solving ability by saying: "Projects like this give students the freedom to be creative and use their imaginations." She went on to explain that many of the students who don't identify as writers actually wrote step-by-step plans for building and then provided detailed explanations for how the "garbage" was transformed into something functional.