This year's competition was extremely competitive with amazing projects pouring in from across the country. Congratulations to Zachary Elementary School! With so many wonderful projects, this was an extremely difficult choice, and you should be very proud of yourselves.
BRICKETT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
PROJECT TITLE: "THINK BEFORE YOU IDLE"
TEACHER NAME:
DONNA WHALEN
STATE:
Massachusetts
GRADE LEVEL:
5th Graders
Our grand-prize winning classroom is hard at work in an effort to decrease needless vehicle idling in Lynn, Massachusetts. The students are educating their community, encouraging a change of habits, and taking positive social action to create change. This fifth grade class conducted research into idling, implemented a wide-ranging “Think Before You Idle” campaign describing the effects of idling and providing tips to reduce idling, collected hundreds of pledges from community members, worked with their state senator to propose an amendment to current Massachusetts’ anti-idling laws, and began participation in a Safe Routes to School program encouraging students to walk or bike to school. Their work has already led to the posting of no-idling signs outside of all Lynn public schools in an effort to enforce an anti-idling law in Massachusetts forbidding idling within 100 feet of a school.
