The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Students build creativity into a charity donation challenge
Keystone Middle School combines STEM lesson with toilet paper drive
Keystone Middle School, 501 Opportunity Way in Lagrange, combined a charitable drive with a collaborative lesson during its Nov. 20 Toilet Paper Challenge.
“The challenge is part of a drive to collect toilet paper for the community,” said Suzanne Healy, a teacher at Keystone Middle. “This the second year we’ve done this.
“A year ago, we were looking for what the best item would be to create a donation drive and the Lagrange Lions Club mentioned that toilet paper is a huge need.
“The students have really gotten enthusiastic about the drive and have brought in a good amount of toilet paper for the Lions Club to collect.”
Healy said teachers organized an event around the drive.
“The challenge of building something with the donations was a great way to increase the amount of toilet paper that’s given” she said. “We wanted to do something to motivate more donations, so we had the students build something by taking up what was donated.
“The more you donated, the more building blocks you had.”
Jacki Daymut, teacher at Keystone Middle, said she adapted the challenge this year based on what she learned from last year’s event.
“Last year, we simply had them build a tower as high as they could,” Daymut said. “That ended up being too chaotic, so we changed it up.
“This year, we have students building a turkey and then a fort.”
Daymut said the challenge incorporates STEM (science technology engineering and math) skills.
“It’s the hands-on, cooperative learning that you have with STEM,” she said. “Keeping with Thanksgiving, they will be stacking up to build a turkey. The turkey must have a body, a head and two legs. Additional points will be given if they can make a beak, feathers and any other detail they can think of. One of the groups even added wings, which is something I didn’t even think about.”
Daymut said a side challenge was seeing how many people they could fit in a fort.
“The next part is constructing a meter high fort with four sides and seeing how many you can fit inside,” she said. “Obviously, the group with the most donated toilet paper will have the wider structure.”
Daymut said the event is really good for the students.
“They get to work together to make something while also helping those in need,” she said. “It’s the perfect combination and the students and teachers enjoy being a part of it.”