In grades 7-9, one of the classes that students take is Social Action, to help develop skills and experience on having a positive impact on ones community. The grade 9 students recently put together this video of their clean-up of the forest around the Townshend campus.
The students share their thoughts:
“On Friday, the 9th of October, we went in the forest surrounding the school. We divided ourselves into small groups and walked around, collecting any piece of trash that we saw. We were pleasantly surprised when we saw that there was almost no trash in the forest.” ~Fina, Czech Republic
“It was nice that we could help the community. We could clean up the nature. Also we served everyone with little work. It was nice. It was cold. We were productive.” ~Leo, Germany
“It was nice to help the community and clean up the environment. We had a good time running in the forest.” ~Arman, Mariana Islands
“Filming people was more interesting than I thought and I think it was good experience.” ~Jan, Czech Republic
“The Grade 9 went to pick up trash in the forest nearby. They were fully excited to help clean the environment next to the school. They picked quite a lot of trash, but the forest was very clean from what they saw. They were surprised that the forest was clean and that the people around actually care about their environment.” ~Krystof, Czech Republic
“My overall impression of the group trash picking on Friday, the 9th of October, was quite good. I think we were more united as a class as we were picking up garbage in the forest. So this was another means of a ‘class bonding project’ as well as cleaning up the environment. There weren’t as much trash as we had expected, signaling the community is well taken care of.” ~Killy, Indonesia
“…On Friday, the 9th of October, we went outside into the woods and picked up trash. We had some trash bags and everyone had gloves that we stay clean. We found a lot of things. We found: a lot of plastic things, bottles, a shoe and many paper things. All of us had fun and it was a successful project.” ~Benedikt, Germany
“The Grade 9 class picked up trash in the forest. They were full of motivation and they put a lot of effort and hard work into it. They found a lot of trash plus some weird stuff that don’t belong to a forest.” ~Rueben, Portugal
“This was a project to clean the environment. Most of the people enjoyed it. We didn’t find a lot of trash and that is a good thing. It shows the people and the environment are good friends. We had funny moments and some moments of quiet. And we saw some beautiful places in the forest. I hope we will have many projects like this.” ~Dennis, Romania
“We went to pick up the rubbish on Friday, the 9th of October. We took bags and gloves and went outside. But we didn’t pick up too much rubbish.” ~Jinxuan, China
“It was good to go out and pick up the trash. I did it also in Luxembourg with my junior sixth class. We have saved a little bit of the environment for the animals and the climate and the air. Maybe if everyone saves the environment, then the ecosystem will be good.” ~David, Luxembourg
“I think that it was very nice and we got to clean a small part of the woods, plus the view was nice. It was amazing. I also realized the fact that the woods around Townshend International School are very clean and people here take good care of the environment. I really enjoyed it and I hope we will get to do more for the environment.” ~Mitra, Romania
“On Friday, the 9th of October, our Grade 9 class went around the forest near our school and picked up trash. When picking up trash we found that there was not as much trash as we thought there would be. I think that the service we did was helpful to the community.” ~Jasmine, Democratic Republic of Congo
“Picking up trash around the forest next to our school campus was a fun and satisfying experience. Our whole Grade 9 class seemed to be enjoying themselves, while still being able to work together nicely. It was a very satisfying thing to do, and (surprisingly enough) we found less trash than expected. It gave our class, or at least, it gave me a new view on the nature that surrounds our school and I had fun talking with my classmates about everyday things while collecting in the forest, lugging around heavy bags of trash with us. I got to learn more about the actual personal lives of my classmates, and I got to feel that only comes when you do good things for someone beside ourselves.” ~Roxie, United States