Posted: 4/16/03

Class project teaches many lessons

Cliff Buchan
News Editor

It is a lesson in sewing. But it is also lessons in cooperation, speaking and how to reduce, reuse and recycle.

As part of an annual class project in ISD 831, junior high school students are learning to channel their skills in sewing through a class project that shares their efforts with elementary students and involves the partnership of the city of Forest Lake.

Creative sewing classes at Southwest and Century junior high schools are taking part this spring in what Southwest instructor Kathy Norquist calls a ìrewarding community service project.î

It is a project created and sponsored by Betty Bergerson, city of Forest Lake recycling coordinator.

Each year Bergerson provides recycled jeans. From the jeans the junior high school students create and decorate reusable lunch bags for first grade students throughout ISD 831 schools.

Junior high school students are able to incorporate their sewing skills with lessons about recycling. Junior high students make school visits to talk about recycling and present their handmade lunch bags to elementary students.

During the school visit, students in the sewing class teach a lesson to the first graders on how to pack a SMART (Save money and reduce trash) lunch.

Each lunch bag is personally engraved in puff paint with the studentís name.

ìThe goals of this project include educating junior high students about being SMART shoppers and reinforcing what they learn by teaching younger students,î Norquist said.

ìThe project also teaches first graders that reusing things can be a fun, simple, every day thing like packing your own lunch.î

Other goals of the project, Norquist says, include fostering leadership and presentation skills in junior high students and improving their sewing skills.

Students in the creative sewing classes receive information from Bergerson and the Forest Lake Recycling Center and the Washington County Health and Education and Land Management department about how to produce less trash and waste.

The class project is made possible thanks to business donations.

Various area businesses provide support to pack the lunch bags with sandwich keepers and plastic juice boxes.

School visits started early this spring and will continue through April throughout the district.

The junior high students deliver a simple message: ìreduce, reuse and recycle.î

The creative sewing class is offered as part of the districtís family and consumer science curriculum at the junior high school level.

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