Hampton High IB Academy students extend their PBL experience with an Earth Day Cleanup Challenge

Excited by their project-based learning experience Raffle for the Bay and the campus cleanup they conducted in February, sophomore students in Hampton High School’s IB Academy developed a division-wide school cleanup challenge held during the month of April.   

Students Aaron Bunn, Shaunte Moore, and Markos Pritchard met with members of the Hampton Clean City Commission and teacher sponsors Ashley Ault and Jennifer Menzel on March 6 to plan how the challenge would take shape. The students then developed a flyer to advertise the event.

Schools were able to register for a date for their cleanup and reserve litter sticks, gloves, garbage bags, and safety vests from the Hampton Clean City Commission. The schools and cleanup coordinators who participated in the event included Armstrong School for the Arts (Nancy Eason), Burbank Elementary School (Missy Powell-Riedl), Kecoughtan High School (Sally Lewis and Karen Chang), and Kilgore Gifted Center (Michele Ferrel). Ms. Powell-Riedl’s kindergartners collected one bag of litter. Because the class regularly conducts cleanups, the campus had very little litter. Ms. Ferrel’s 97 fourth graders at Kilgore collected 40 grocery bags of litter weighing in at 11.10 pounds. All 275 Armstrong Lions participated in their school cleanup, weeding their garden, collecting litter, and composting 51 garbage bags of sweet gum balls that were making the playground treacherous. The Hampton High School students would like to give a tremendous shout out to the schools that participated and the school staff who coordinated the cleanups and submitted their results.

Congratulations to Armstrong School for the Arts for winning the First Annual Hampton High School Earth Month Cleanup Challenge! Armstrong will get to proudly display a lovely trophy made entirely of recycled materials until next year’s challenge. To ensure your school participates in next year’s challenge, please make sure you have a School Pride in Action representative (contact Sally Lewis or Betsy McAllister).