Environmental Science Class Keeps Children Alive
February 10, 2010 • Jordyn Woodtke, Staff Writer
Filed under News
A beautiful thing is occurring at Rockville High School; students are working hard to save children millions of miles away. And they have been doing their best to encourage their classmates to help in the struggle as well.
Mr. Edward Argenta has been teaching Environmental Science at RHS for quite some time and has spread his enthusiasm for the course to his students, which is probably a leading cause as to why so many underclassmen choose to take the class. The class is open to any junior or senior who has successfully completed Biology at a college or honors level.
Part of the Environmental curriculum at Uconn is participating in a community service project; it could be anything from picking up trash at a park to fundraising for a charity. Since the block one class at the high school is based on this program, the students here must also complete a project. A project can be completed by an individual or by a whole group, and when the Environmental class at Rockville realized it may be too cold to be cleaning up the outdoors during the chilly first semester months when their class runs, they decided to complete the project together. They have decided to sell bracelets as a means of gathering money for the Keep a Child Alive Foundation sponsored by Alicia Keys.
“It brings people all over together in an effort to help those truly in need,” Bobby Waggoner, a senior enrolled in the class, stated.
The foundation gives 90% of its proceeds to villages and communities in Africa for resources like medicine, food, clean water and constructing buildings meant for the complete treatment of those suffering with HIV and AIDS, including therapy and women empowerment groups.
Mr. Argenta researched possible charities the class could give money to and approached the students with this idea. The Environmental class watched a documentary about Keys’ time in Africa with the people she is doing so much to help; it brought tears to students’ eyes, and they knew this was the foundation they wished to contribute to. Children as young as months old with no parents, living with only older siblings in tiny, cramped huts, and infected by the disease cried on camera, believing their situation cannot be changed. The students hope to change all that.
“We all felt really strongly about wanting to do something to make life better for these people,” another senior Environmental student, Valerie Woodruff, said.
The foundation is also very excited about the work being done. They sent four hundred bracelets to the class to begin selling before the winter vacation as well as posters.
All the teens have taken home bracelets to sell to their families and friends and, so far, many have been very successful; people seem to be responding well. The class sold bracelets outside of lunch waves accompanied by a giant sign with the foundation’s name, but they are not done yet. The students want to reach every single classmate and they will continue to sell as long as they have interested peers. Anyone can feel involved by purchasing one of these bracelets for only one dollar.
Failure is not an option for the block one Environmental students. The moment they laid eyes on the amount of change they could cause and the lives they could better, failure became inconceivable.
When asked what his ultimate goal was in being involved with Keep A Child Alive, senior Steve Monaghan replied enthusiastically, “To save lives!”
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