George Cahill, Jax Ryan, and Key’Juan Wright
Mrs.Shelow 5th Period School Beautification Introduction Wake County only provides enough money to cover basic school beautification needs such as cutting the grass and simple landscaping. They only provide 12,500 dollars for the equipment for all 171 schools in the county(Kushner,2016).We care about this issue because everybody would like to go to and see a well maintained school. With this small budget it seems that little can be done to keep our schools looking good. We were interested in this issue because we would not want to go to a school with poor maintenance, I think everybody would rather go to a good looking school. We also did some research and found that having school gardens improves student’s attitudes toward healthy eating(Childs,2011), we found this to very important especially with child obesity being a rising issue these days. In an article I found it says school gardens can teach a healthy lifestyle and improve academic achievement, school gardens have been “a perfect tool to provide hands-on learning experiences for any academic subject.” At schools with gardens there was a 12-15% increase in standardized test score pass rates(Luu,2015). Outside of academics gardens also teach students how to maintain a healthy lifestyle, they learn about the important role of agriculture in our communities(app garden,2017). With the pride of growing fresh fruits and vegetables students are much more likely to try the produce they grew teaching healthier eating habits. School gardens have been around since the 1800’s and are only getting better. The Issue Our issue is our school system’s low maintenance budget. If we were to be able to expand our budget more then maybe we could afford to maintain our school better than we can with the small budget we have now. With a bigger budget there is a more broad spectrum of things to do to take care of our school and make them more appealing. Such as our hallways, when your changing classes and going to your next class, typically all you see are the school colors and and maybe trophies/awards in some spots but with a bigger budget we could make them much more appealing. Also with a bigger budget could open up to more in school and out of school activities such as more artsy type classes which could be used for students to make artwork and cool decorations we can use to make our school look more kid friendly.and appealing if potential students come to visit. People don't often come to visit our school except for a couple of groups of parents coming to check out the learning environment that their child is in sometimes but not too often. Even though it might not be that much of an impact it would still be a good thing to have a nice garden for parents and children to look at while entering or passing by. It may not mean much to some people but to parents and other visitors it is what they would like to see, a nice looking school on the inside and outside. Although it's a good idea to have the inside look more appealing it's not good to only focus on that. Having a nice balance of the way things look outside and inside is good because not as many are going to see the inside as much as the outside besides the students. The Solution Overall school beautification causes a better and more appealing learning environment. School gardens are proven to improve test scores and make school a happier place. School beautification also gets kids excited to learn about things just like the idea of school superheroes to help get kids interested in learning. Also school beautification attracts more parents to enroll their kids there because it puts off a friendly environment type of vibe showing parents that the school is good for your kids. Doing so causes more and more parents to want to enroll their children to their school. Also parents could write good reviews about the school and it’s healthy learning environment. A possible solution to the small budget is making the most out of what you have just laying around giving a use for everything and making your school look more appealing. Doing so also allows your school to open up to more activities such as creative art clubs and classes. Getting a volunteer group to go out to multiple schools in Wake County and make gardens and plant trees would help beautify the school for no cost at all. Some schools open up garden clubs but they often don’t get enough students or enough school funding. This is why a group volunteers going out to schools, especially those with bad test scores or multiple students that are overweight. Conclusion In conclusion our schools are in need of a budget increase to keep schools in the shape we need. The maintenance budget of 12,500 dollars to split between 171 schools means that there is only about 73 dollars per school per year. We found evidence that schools with gardens can help teach a healthy lifestyle such as students who grow fresh produce are more likely to try it and typically healthy foods are grown in gardens. Next we found that student’s test scores went up after making and enjoying a garden. School gardens have been around for a very long time and they can only improve with a bigger budget for improvement. Lastly school gardens teach kids how to use hands on learning to create things. But we do have ideas and ways around the low school budget. Planting trees and shaping up our garden can really improve the test scores and the grades of our students. Also having appealing and interesting things in the room can keep your students from falling a sleep because of a dull boring classroom. We also said that we can use what we have to improve our schools, for example using rocks that are laying around the school to make a cool pathway or some type of interesting artwork. Improving things like the garden is almost the same as improving the school itself because pretty gardens are an eye catcher- and will make more people feel like your school would be a good place to come to for visits. Works Cited Childs, Elizabeth.”Impact of school gardens on student attitudes and beliefs.”Iowa State University. 2011.22 Jan. 2018 https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1412&context=etddens benefit students Kushner, Christine.”Board of Education’s Proposed Budget.”wcpss. No Date. 23 Jan. https://www.wcpss.net/cms/lib/NC01911451/Centricity/Domain/98/BOEBook%20-%20 Internet.pdf#a4 Luu, Alyssa. “Western Growers Foundation.”Western Growers Foundations. 2015. 22 Jan. 2018 http://www.csgn.org/ Unknown, “School Beautification Benefits Students – Volunteer At Your School.” App Garden. 28 Mar. 2017.https://www.app-garden.com/single-post/2017/03/28/school-beautification-benefits- students-more-han-we-think/ Unknown, “Benefits of School-Based Community Gardens.”slow food USA. 2015. 23 Jan. 2018.https://www.slowfoodusa.org/contents/sdownload /3591/file/Benefits-of-School-Gardens-Denver-Urban-Gardens.pdf Examples and pictures This is a great example of school beautification because its appealing and its helping u learn causing more kids to look forward to learning.the more appealing it is the more kids it attracts and it sometimes helps them learn at the same time. The worm is very appealing and makes the school look better, but it also keeps u thinking about your abcs. The garden with the rainbow tires may be something that grabs you and your kids attention while passing by because it's so appealing. And as for the paintings and inspirational statement this may make your parents think “huh my kid is in good arms.
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http://www.wral.com/raleigh-shopping-center-struggles-to-recover-after-burst-pipe-soaks-some-businesses/17244826/ Many people were forced out of there homes after a burst pipe Tuesday evening flooded the complex, a book store, and a wine store. Clean up has been going on ever since and people are starting to be able to asses the damage to their homes, damaged floors and furniture are two of these, I believe that we could get a group of volunteers to go in and help cut out and replace the floors and walls. I am interested in this because I find it fun to help others and help replace walls and floors. Others should care about this because people can't go back to their homes and a book store was damaged.
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