Sustainability

My Sustainability Plan:

I made sure to use a high quality paint that would last for many, many years to come! I used the Valspar Duralast exterior paint with a satin finish. The paint is made to ensure that everything stays exactly how it was the day you painted it on. The satin finish is to ensure that no students will slip when the blacktop is wet.

My project is sustainable in the sense that paint is permanent, sure. But I dug deeper than that. My original plan was to go to the school at the beginning of this year to interact with the kids and to teach them the new games. Then, I planned to implement a game instruction binder in the ball cart that goes outside every recess. Because of COVID-19, I was unable to go and teach the games in person so I worked my way around it which helped me create an even more sustainable plan. I created a game instruction video with the help from a few of my friends, that teaches all of the games. This year, I personally asked the teachers to show the video to their classes at the beginning of this year. They did and I even got feedback from some of the kids that I teach dance to that, "Maddie, I saw your playground video at school today!" This video will continue to be shown to the kids at the beginning of each school year by the gym teacher, Mrs. Murphy. Mrs. Murphy was on my Gold Award team and she was one of the biggest helps when it came to getting my project off the ground. She is also planning on using the games such as the hopscotch walk with her adapted students!

In addition to the video being played every year, I still created the game instruction book even though there is currently no ball cart. I will give this book to Lead Teacher, Mrs. Varga - who also happens to be my project advisor. When the ball cart returns to the recess scene, she will be able to put it in for the students to read if they need.

An important part of my project was increasing cooperation between students which also happens to play into my sustainability plan. With the increase in student cooperation, they will be able to more easily share game rules with each other and teach each other new games if someone does not now how to play. The younger students always want to be like the "big kids" and when they see that they are playing these games, they will want to learn them to! 

I made sure to include my brother in every game in the instruction video to further encourage game usage especially for the boys. They can see that these games aren't made "just for girls". They can play too, because the games are for everyone!