The TCFT Education Challenge
Many years ago, an enterprising student from Aragon High School here in the Bay Area sent us an email asking if we could provide him with complimentary stickers, as his school might not have the budget to buy stickers (and he, as a student, might not be able to navigate the ins and outs of purchasing via the school).
We thought it was a great idea, and not only did we set him up, but we opened up the offer more broadly to any K-12 organization interested. We call it the TCFT Education Challenge. Since then, we've had hundreds of schools reach out to us to take advantage of the Education Challenge. With reports of up to a 30% reduction in paper towel usage!
All we ask is that the interested participant:
Figure out how many stickers they need for their school. How many paper towel dispensers in how many bathrooms and/or classrooms? How many photocopiers?
Make sure that they get permission from their principal or facilities administrator.
Submit your information using the web form (button below) to get the ball rolling!
Lesson Plans for These Come From Trees
I asked some of the teachers who had taken advantage of our Education Challenge what they did to make the experience even more educational, and these were some of the ideas that they came back with.
Document your deployment of TCFT Stickers.
Take pictures of your class deploying them. Put together a video of your class deploying the stickers, and publish it to YouTube or present it your school.
Write about it. Talk about it.
Make a blog post. Write it up for the school newspaper or create an online newsletter. Create a presentation to present to the school. Enlist the facilities staff to help record changes in paper towel usage (less paper towel usage = less refilling and more $$ in the budget to put to use elsewhere). Have your students present the project to the rest of the school, to get other students and teachers excited and on board with reducing paper waste.
Create additional lesson plans.
CONSERVATION Do a lesson around how "Reduce" can be as big a part of conservation as "Recycle." What else can be reduced even before we have to expend energy and resources to recycle it?
MATH Can you do experiments around how much paper the stickers are saving? Test before and after they go up. Do estimations of how many paper towels get used at your school, in your district, in your state. Do estimations of how many paper towels could be saved in your school, district, and state. How many trees is that?
BUSINESS Explain the idea of "return on investment" and how using some paper now (the sticker) can save more later. How long until the investment is paid back? How about for your whole school?
