By

Debbie Miles,   Madison Middle School

Play:

Build Your Own Shake-Up

Topics:

Access to Healthy Foods, Community Involvement, Student Leadership, Teamwork,  Other

Our project included Fuel Up to Play 60 Student Ambassadors recycling milk bottles during school lunchtime. Together, they created a large milk bottle display. They held a milk bottle class contest, which was to guess the number of milk bottles used for the display and secondly, to guess the percentage of white milk versus chocolate milk. The FUTP 60 advisors created a smoothie party cart and shared in the fun of hosting smoothie parties for the winning classes in the contest. Our local grocery store granted us permission to display our large milk bottle to create community awareness of fueling our bodies with milk to receive all the health benefits.

How did you accomplish your goals?

We accomplished our goals by brainstorming and created a plan. Students took shifts at lunchtime to lead the recycling project. We publicized through morning announcements. We created an awareness in our school by making posters about the benefits of drinking milk. We led a contest to make it fun! We brought in a reward to the winning classrooms with a smoothie party. We shared our milk bottle display with our local grocery store to engage our community on the benefits of drinking milk.

What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

We had some challenges with gluing the milk bottles uniformly. However, we were able to fill in spaces where needed in the display by squeezing the milk bottles to make them smaller to fit in the tight spaces. Another challenge was transporting the milk bottle display without breaking it. We solved this problem by wrapping it in a tarp and tying it down with rope.

How did students and adults work together as a team?

Students worked together with adult advisors on the project. We planned shifts for the recycling project. Adults acquired the supplies and then students set to work on building the milk bottle display. Adults and youths together created a milk bottle contest. We included our broadcasting teacher to publicize. Our adult advisors created the smoothie party cart for the winning classes. Finally, we had adults help with transporting the milk bottle display to the grocery store.