netTrekker Blog

Join a Brigade, Earn Money, Save the Earth

Happy Earth Day everyone! What are your big plans to celebrate today with your students? Are you planting a tree? Reading in the school garden? Making recycled art projects? Finding alternative energy sources?

Why not join a brigade, and earn money while you’re at it?

When I taught in South Carolina, I use to attend the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) sponsored event called “Action for a Cleaner Tomorrow.” It was a great learning experience where I learned more about composting, using rain barrels, recycling, and what I could do in my classroom to reduce, reuse and recycle. Many statewide EPA organizations host these great learning events and I definitely recommend attending one when possible.

At the event, one of the sponsors shared with us items they made out of recycled items. I had a pencil made out of denim, and another made out of recycled money. There was carpet made from recycled bottles and purses made from drink pouches. Lots of items can be made from recycled material. You’d be amazed!

But recycling is not always convenient. Of course when I’m traveling and I see a recycling bin for my water bottle, I use it. But what about the rest of my trash? Or when I’m home? My community just doesn’t encourage recycling by making it easy. And of course, if it isn’t easy, not man people are going to do it.

So this weekend when I was reading an article, I learned about TerraCycle and knew that it was the way to encourage recycling in many places! The way it works is you join a specific brigade, such as the Elmer’s Glue Brigade or the Chip Bag Brigade, and you start collecting the waste from those items. You get paid something like $0.02 for each wrapper or glue container, which doesn’t sound like much but if 100 kids gave you the chip bag from their lunch, that’s $2. And I bet at least 100 kids bring chips to school a day and so in one week, that’s $10 and $40 in one month. That’s $360 a year. That’s almost the price of a new iPad or gardening materials to beautify the reading garden in your school. Or money to replenish the consumable materials for a science lab. Maybe use it to sponsor a field trip to a local landfill or recycling center. Competitive organizations like FBLA and the Robotic Teams could use the money to help cut their expenses.

OR, a subscription for your school of Weekly Reader Express added on to your netTrekker subscription. Great way to use a

digital resource, with the learning tools like read aloud, and reduce the amount of waste. So many ideas!

AND, you could ask a local sub shop to help you out by collecting the bags from their guests as well.  Just make sure you have someone dedicated to go pick up the bags on a set schedule. You could also hang out at sporting events to rescue the materials from the bins there. So many possibilities! Our old canteen group could have collected the chips and wrappers from those who bought from us in order to raise money for a field trip celebration.

They are plenty of brigades out there, and some of them are only open to schools. Read through and if possible, sign up for several brigades. Maybe one for each grade level or special interest group in the school. Definitely some possibilities.

If you do sign up for TerraCycle, I’d love to hear which brigade you signed up for and what you hope to do with funds raised.

Tags: Earth Day, fundraiser, netTrekker, recycle, reduce, reuse, TerraCycle, weekly reader

Getting By With A Little Help

I mentioned yesterday that I read a variety of blogs, articles and other goodies first thing in the morning. Well at night, I treat myself to a bit of the entertainment news and last night in my alerts were a few pages with updates about David Cook.

I admit, I didn’t watch American Idol faithfully until his season, and season 8 didn’t hold my attention as much because David Cook was not a contestant. I’m a cougar cub for David Cook, what can I say?

Well in last night’s alerts was something about Adam Lambert, a very talented runner up for season 8 – but still not my favorite over David. Adam grabbed my attention last night, and in turn has influenced me to buy my son Adam’s debut CD. Why? Because of this commercial he made for DonorsChoose. DonorsChoose is an awesome program where teachers can write up a project or request resources that they need funding, then regular people like yourself can donate. You can give as little or as much as you can. Adam is passionate about the arts, a great outlet for kids with ADHD (like Adam mentioned in one interview) and even for kids with learning disabilities, so he advocates donating to the arts in schools.

If you are a classroom teacher, and you need to find resources for your classroom, check out DonorsChoose and see if your wish list qualifies. You can include a netTrekker subscription add-on to Weekly Reader or BrainPOP. Weekly Reader Online will help you save trees, while promoting literacy skills and global understanding using this trusted classroom resource. BrainPOP – well “the more you know, the more you know”, and their movies will help you be in the know, along with the quizzes and interactive media. Both premium upgrades lend to more interaction in the classroom, and deeper learning of content.

If you are looking for grants, then check out netTrekker’s Teacher Tools (the feature I mentioned yesterday). Click on Professional Development and then there will be a topic on grants. There are many great sites with grants still available, for as little as $100 to the thousands! The Federal Government to Best Buy to HP to Dollar General offer grants that can benefit reading programs or your greatest dream as a teacher. We even have great links to websites that will help you write the grants you’re searching for.

Thank you Adam for highlighting DonorsChoose. Best of luck to any teacher submitting for a grant. Make sure you also keep an eye on our Funding Update Page by Alan Whisman for federal funding information. (You can subscribe to the page via RSS and make it even easier to keep up with. And while you’re at it, subscribe to the main blog as well!)

Tags: Adam Lambert, American Idol, arts, Best Buy Grant, Brain Cancer, BrainPOP, Cook, David Cook, Dollar General, donations, DonorsChoose, Federal Funding, Give Back, grants, HP, Lambert, netTrekker, supplies, Teacher Tools, weekly reader

You mean I can add MORE collections?

YES, YOU CAN add to the collections already in netTrekker d.i.!  And you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find out that it’s Weekly Reader Express (WRE).   If you’re like me, you have fond memories of getting this great magazine as a child.  Now you can provide your students with the same great info through your netTrekker subscription!  It simply appears in your Collections Refinement Menu as well as integrated with other resources in Search Results pages once you order it.

And the best part is that you can search their database of articles, teacher’s guide content, and reproducible activities from eleven Weekly Reader classroom magazines from 2000 to the present.  —over 7 million words in all!

WRE covers a broad range of academic topics, from social studies and English language arts to science, health, current events, and career development in all eleven of their magazines. 

Can you honestly resist a magazine with such great covers?  Give me a gorilla any day! “How do I get this?” you ask.  You can get a free trial or add it to your subscription by calling 877-517-1125 or emailing sales@netTrekker.com.

For even more details, check this out:  Weekly Reader Express.

Tags: netTrekker, netTrekker d.i., weekly reader, weekly reader express