Out of the 450 entries submitted from Woodland, West Sacramento and Winters schools, three fourth graders from Shirley Rominger Intermediate School swept the first, second and third place awards in the local Waste Management Recycle America art contest. The art contest was part of WM’s America Recycle Day celebration Nov. 15. Nan Williams, the science teacher who runs the STEAM programs at both the Waggoner Elementary and Rominger school sites, said she and Jill Aguiar did a unit on recycling with fourth and fifth graders at Rominger to teach them about recycling to prepare for the art contest. Williams said the mission of the contest was to educate communities about the rules of how to correctly recycle. Waste Management even sent representatives to present to fourth grade students about recycling. Fourth and fifth graders created posters about recycling including the right way to prepare recyclable items, what items can go inside a home recycling bin and which need to be dropped off at a designated recycling station. “The idea was to teach someone about recycling. It wasn’t just drawing a pretty picture. They had to teach a lesson,” said Williams. At the Nov. 15 America Recycle Day celebration held at the Sacramento Recycling and Transfer Station the three Winters students received their honors. Elizabeth Murillo Guzman’s poster won first place and a $200 cash prize. Her poster was also blown up to a larger, poster size and will be on display at the Sacramento Waste Management station for a year. Calla Mayes’ poster won second place and a $100 cash prize and Idaly Lopez Sanchez’s poster won third place and a $50 cash prize.
Additionally, the Winters STEAM program received a $500 cash prize for the most student submissions. Between the two grades over 200 entries were submitted by Winters students.
Williams said she is excited about the opportunities the additional funding will bring to her students as the program is generally designated $250 a year.
Williams first brought the STEAM program to Winters elementary schools in September 2014. The program engages students at both Waggoner and Rominger school sites to explore different areas of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics in weekly labs. This includes the learning garden at Waggoner and the Makerspace opportunity where students are encouraged to think like engineers and collaboratively create things out of materials, explore how things work like circuits and design projects.
Donations of toilet paper tubes, yarn, fabric, tape, glue and anything that a maker could use to create with are always a needed for the Waggoner Makerspace program.
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