At the beginning of the year, Student Leadership made a list of possible problems in our school. We voted on which problem was the most immediate and serious. The problem with the most votes was the food waste in the cafeteria. Then we made a survey to pass out to the kids eating breakfast that had the questions; 'What foods do kids like the most?' 'What foods do kids waste the most?' and, 'Why do kids waste food?' Afterwards we tallied the results from the survey. We got many different answers, but the main one for why kids waste food seemed to be because they wanted to get outside quickly to play. We decided the best idea was to try recess before lunch. We made a paragraph stating, "We want Mr. Nguyen to decide to have recess first which will result in kids eating more of their lunch. In order to do his we will ask him to have a trial run." Then we wrote an action plan, and carried it through. Our action plan was to schedule an appointment, prepare our research notes, address challenges and solutions, communicate with teachers, students and Ms. Jill, make our presentation to Mr. Nguyen and evaluate our results.
Mr. Nguyen let us evaluate our plan and to do a trial run. The lunch lady measured the food waste during the trial run and a regular day. If the trail run works we may even do it next year.
-- Story submitted by Hana Belay-Gebru and Ashleigh Maus, Student Leadership Team, Ellis Elementary School