Grace Hill Elementary students learning about eco-business
Posted on Wednesday, May 23, 2007
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/rhtn/News/2588/
Ryan Finley may be the only teacher at Grace Hill Elementary School who has a worm farm in his classroom. He’s also the only teacher who got a visit from young entrepreneur Tom Szaky, co-founder / CEO of TerraCycle.
His students may be the only class at Grace Hill to develop an environmentally friendly, marketable board game. It all started with the worms.
According to its Web site, TerraCycle is the “ first-ever Eco-Capitalist corporation. ” The students in Finley’s class had a chance to learn first hand how a 25-year-old college dropout started a business that not only limits its use of natural resources, it actually turns waste into a salable product.
Finley and Szaky have worms in common. Szaky manufacturers a plant food that is now for sale in local Wal-Marts and Home Depots.
“ Worm poop, ” he told the students, “ is a really good fertilizer. ”
TerraCycle takes garbage, feeds it to worms and harvests the worms by-products which is turned into a liquid that Szaky calls “ worm wine. ”
Finley and Szaky also have plastic bottles in common. Finley and his students have been recycling plastic bottles all year and sending them to TerraCycle. TerraCycle pays Finley’s class and the students from over 3, 000 other schools for the bottles and then reuses them to package the plant food.
Every bottle is different, Szaky told the students while his associate passed out African Violet food in what once been one liter soda pop bottles. The bottles are cleaned out and covered with a plastic label before the worm wine is added, he said. Then a new cap is put on.
But Szaky had a problem and he asked the Grace Hill students for help. He wanted to find a way to reuse the original bottle caps that come with the plastic bottles.
“ Can anyone think of a way to use the old bottle caps ? ” he asked.
As it happens, Finley’s class had a way.
Students quickly pointed out a handmade chess set that used a board covered with black and red construction paper and chess pieces that were once red and white bottle caps. Each piece has a hand drawn design designating its rank. Szaky was impressed.
“ I’m going to take this back to my factory and see if we can find a way to use this, ” he told the students. With his plant food already selling in stores like Wal-Mart, it’s possible that a game using recycled products might be welcome.
If it works, each of Finley’s students will get a copy of the game, he promised. And he’ll give credit to the class for its idea.
Along with the lesson on environmental science, Szaky gave the students a lesson on entrepreneurship and the possibility that they’ll see their product in Wal-Mart.