A great example of intergenerational activities on the Steinmühlen campus is the upcycling club run by three 10th-grade girls for 4th-grade elementary school students. Lisa Maria Schreier, Emilia Berger, and Ziya Qu lead the club as part of their project-based learning. “Our goal is to further promote the children’s environmental awareness in a playful and artistic way from a young age. In this club, we teach the girls and boys that not all trash is the same. We want to inspire the children to turn old items into new, useful things or to create something that brightens up their everyday lives,” says Lisa Maria Schreier.
“A New Life” for Materials and Objects
The plan is working out impressively well. The elementary school students are turning old canning jars into beautiful containers for spices and other items. Used clothes that have become too small can be turned into pencil cases—and these are just a few examples of how objects are given a “new life” and materials are often put to new uses.
The club began in the second quarter of the first semester. It is optional and relies on regular participants. Tenth-grade girls and elementary school students meet every Thursday from 2:45 p.m. to 3:25 p.m. in an elementary school classroom. It’s still possible to join later, but only after consulting with the organizers.
Selection of the Best Project
The teachers in charge, Dr. Rainer Nietzke and Heike Rabben-Martin, are standing behind the tenth-grade girls. Since they were unable to supervise the elementary school students, Lorraine Herrmann, the assistant principal of the Steinmühle Bilingual Elementary School, is handling that task. She observed: “I’m not really needed here. The tenth-grade girls work with the children like pros.”
To further boost enthusiasm and motivation for the work, at the end of each club meeting, a vote is held to determine which project was the most successful. When the choice falls on one’s own pencil case or the card index box one created, the joy is, of course, especially great.
