Thank you so much for all of your hard work and dedication to this project. A big thank you and kudos to Tana for her leadership on this project, our community will be better informed and inspired by the voice and creativity of 4J students! My dad will be in town and I will be showing the parachutes off on June 1st! Thank you everyone! Sue Wilson, K-12 Curriculum Administrator, Mathematics & Applied Sciences, Eugene School District 4J Tana, thank you for your work coordinating this project, and for keeping us in the loop about it! Appreciation too to all the teachers who have incorporated this project melding art, environmental science and social justice education into their classrooms. I can't wait to see the parachutes on displayand I'm looking forward to hearing more about them traveling to the National Mall! Kerry Delf, Assoc Dir. of Communications, Eugene School District 4J Our class we watched a couple of videos about the importance of water (H2O) and we went over how water is used and needed for (to grow a garden, for drinking, taking baths, showers, having fun (splashing), swimming, cooking, fighting fires, watering, washing, flushing toilets, of water and how without water we can not survive and the importance of becoming conscientious in conserving water. We talked bout making sure that in our classroom we put trash and recyclables in the right receptacles. We did a writing activity where the students wrote and illustrated about how we can help conserve water and other ways to conserve other sources of energy. We will continue once a week going over how to reduce our footprint so our impact is less negative for mother earth. We will read a book called The Greenzys and do a few more lessons from an Earth Book for Kids by Linda Schwartz that contains activities to help heal the environment. Each of us can have a positive effect in improving the current conditions and avoiding depleting mother earth resources if we are conscious that our everyday decisions either help or harm our planet whether we are conscious of this or not. Having done the parachute artwork was a great opportunity to direct our attention to a very important issue we are facing as a society where we are all responsible and that we can do something to improve the situation. I hope my students continue inquiring and develop a sense of ones responsibility instead of relying on somebody else to do something about it first. Earth is our home/hogar and it is up to each of us to take care of our planet if we want our current and future generations to enjoy it! -Ghisleli Ramirez-Tate, 2nd grade teacher