A group of Menands students found that making a small change in the school’s lunchtime routine will save money and reduce pollution.
Students on the Menands Inquiry Team, which is open to fifth- through seventh-graders, found that the K-8 Menands School spends $360 on 40,000 plastic forks and spoons annually, and they wanted to convince the school there was a better option.
On Monday, June 9, the team presented their findings to the school board, demonstrating that it would be more cost-effective and better for the environment to use reusable silverware instead of plastic utensils with school lunches. The board agreed, and the switch will be made at the beginning of the next school year.
Students on the Menands Inquiry Team (MIT), which was created two years ago, have to meet certain qualifications that demonstrate advanced abilities to take part in the team.
“In our school, we call them our high-ability, high-achieving students, and we look at their overall report card averages and their teacher recommendations,” said Sarah Horaczek, the class teacher.
As part of the class, the students pick a subject to investigate and then look for a way to improve it. At the completion of the project, the students present their findings and demonstrate what they learned from the challenges.
“First, we wanted to do a compost project. The idea was that we would do something good for the environment. So we tried compost and found it was too difficult because we would need someone to maintain the compost, but since we’re not going to have MIT next year, it would be difficult so we switched to the silverware project,” said Dennis Howard, who will be going into eighth grade next year.
Wanting to keep the focus on the environmental theme, the students looked at other ways they could reduce waste around the school.
“We saw that the cafeteria used a lot of plastic utensils so we thought that if we changed it to metal then less would be thrown out and less would be polluting the environment,” said Howard.
Another MIT member, Mahila Krishnamurthy, said research pointed them in the direction of reusable silverware.
“We also read an article about another school switching to silverware,” said Krishnamurthy.
Once the students agreed on their topic, they had to come up with a plan of attack and get down to researching the most environmentally friendly and cost-effective way to go about reaching their goal of cutting plastic waste.
“We had to come up with a plan as to how we were going to approach this. We started out by getting catalogs to check prices,” said Krishnamurthy.
The school will be purchasing 1,000 forks and spoons for $213 for next school year.
When they make the transition to metal utensils next year, the team has a concern that other students will throw the silverware away on accident.
“We have a fear that the silverware will be thrown out, mostly by the younger kids because it’s a habit. If too many pieces of silverware are thrown out, we will go back to plastic,” said Howard.
To help prevent students from throwing out silverware, the team will have a presentation next year to let everyone know why they shouldn’t throw the silverware out. They will also make posters as reminders when the students go to clear off their trays.
Other members of the team worked on a project, inspired by a cultural fair, where they created a three-course meal to present to teachers at a teacher appreciation luncheon. They said the diverse culture of Menands School made them want to learn about other cultures and the foods they eat.
The students said they gained a lot from the experience, from having to set up meetings with adults, to creating email accounts to communicate with one another.
“We experienced challenges talking to people so we learned how to do a formal meeting and how talk to other people about the information we needed,” said Howard.
Student Karin Yannes said the project opened up new experiences for them.
“We learned how to do projects in different ways besides being told by a teacher,” Yannes said.
The majority of the team agreed that one of the most important things they took away from the project was how to work together and that they can do things without constant supervision.
“It’s good to see them have a voice at their own school. They spend nine years here. It’s good to see them taking note of what’s happening and really participating,” said Horaczek.