Plastic pollution? Trash? At Trinity Elementary School, those global problems are an opportunity for fourth-graders to come up with creative solutions.
One of them? The recent Third Annual Trashion Fashion Challenge, in which wearable fashion creations were engineered and showcased as a learning opportunity.
Through videos, articles, and discussion, the fourth-graders have been studying plastic pollution and its detrimental environmental impact. They read the book “One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia” by Miranda Paul, a true story about a woman who found a way to ease her village’s plastic pollution problem. They also learned about the three Rs: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, as well as upcycling — reusing items for a new purpose so that trash doesn’t end up in landfills.
That’s when ingenuity took over. Students, as part of an optional assignment, created clothing and accessories for the Trashion Fashion Challenge. Using 100% repurposed trash or recyclables, they showed off their handiwork during an auditorium presentation and maximized opportunities to explain their ingenuity.
