Letter to My School

I thought I'd share this. It is a copy of an e-mail that I sent to my school regarding Earth Hour and the grassroots work my students have done.

Northside School-

This Saturday is the official Earth Hour. Since Earth Hour is on a Saturday, my students came up with the idea of having all of Northside turn off their classroom lights from 9-9:30 on Friday in honor of Earth Hour. We hope you join us and participate in Northside Schools Earth Hour. It would be so cool to walk through school school and only see necessary lights on!

Don't forget to turn off your lights on Saturday too, from 8:30-9:30. Don't forget to spread the word among other family and friends also.

Feel free to take a picture or a short video of what you choose to do either Friday OR Saturday and send it to me. I am planning on putting a movie together showing how NS celebrated this awesome day! Read on below if you'd like more info about Earth Hour.

Thanks for participating!

Travis

Earth Hour started out in 2007 as an initiative in Sydney, Australia. The people at the World Wildlife Federation came up with a plan to encourage as many people in Sydney to turn off their lights for 1 hour to save energy and fight global warming. They estimated that 2.2 million people participated and landmarks such as the Sydney Opera House even turned off the lights. In '08 Earth Hour grew tremendously. The WWF estimated 55 million people around the globe participated.

Fast forward to 2009: The goal is to get 1 billion people in 1,000 cities to participate. Earth Hour has been relying on social media (twitter, facebook, blogs, etc. )(yes I am a geek) and word of mouth to convince people to turn off their lights from 8:30-9:30. I came across it while searching for something cool to do for a conserving electricity lesson. I shared Earth Hour with my class decided to spread the word. They wanted to convince Fairport to participate, but aimed to start with Northside. We may not have reached our end goal, but we have reached as far as England via our class blog.

I could not more proud of a group of students. Nine and ten year old students stepped up and worked to make a change and a difference in the world. They ran the show, deciding on goals and how to achieve them. They split into groups depending on their strengths. The artists made posters. The computer 'geek squad' made digital ads via PowerPoint and GoogleDocs Presentations to share on our class blog. The writers wrote to school leaders, local newspapers and even wrote scripts for school announcements and video ads (see below). The Woodsters never cease to amaze me with their care and drive once they believe in something.

I'm looking forward to voting for the Earth Saturday and to spreading the word for next year's Earth Hour when the current Woodsters and next year's group can team up to see the difference they can make.

Check back for a video of what everyone did during their Earth Hour celebration!