This 2009 World We Want Grant did its job.

When we requested the grant – to be able to offer a special field trip to the Seattle Green Festival for our students in Federal Way – we weren’t entirely sure what to expect. After all, the Green Festival was
on a weekend, and we weren’t sure how much enthusiasm we would be able to generate for a Saturday school field trip.

But the strong message that the Green Festival carries to these kids was something important enough to give it a shot. We wound up with nearly one-fourth of our 108 students who were willing to “give up their Saturday” to spend with their teachers, getting on a bus to Seattle (about 90 minutes each way), and mostly be “learning” all day. For many of these kids, it was life-changing; after all, 47 percent of our students qualify for free-and-reduced lunch, including many who were on the field trip.

For the trip, I assigned teams of 2 or 3 to stick together, and somehow document the day. Most had cell phones to take pictures, so when we got back to class the following Monday, many of the kids were ready to share their photos, etc.

A week later, the students presented their PowerPoints to the class, and then we had some of the especially tech-savvy kids merge the best parts of each into one larger Presentation – which is this product.

This whole experience had a carryover for their entire outlook on their responsibility to the environment and the wider world.

Here are a few small examples.

The Fair Trade Chocolate march, or parade, or whatever it was, had a very significant impact, for instance. Heck, these are 13-year-old girls who were just having fun getting free samples of chocolate, but their conversation in class on Monday turned to "fair trade" and what that is, and why it's important.

It was the kids who insisted that we take the Metro bus. I figured we'd pile into 5-6 minivans, and parents would drive, but when Eddie suggested it,  they were all over that idea. Believe me, if this were "just another field trip," those kinds of ideas would not have popped up. But once they did, there's no stopping them. We're planning a field trip to Tacoma next fall (history museum)... and we've figured out how to take the Pierce County bus there, and have gotten principal approval: Not that it's a huge deal, but for 13-year-olds to tell adults like me that "there's another, better way to do this" -- even something as routine as a field trip, is kind of an eye opener.

They're very proud of the fact that they know more about many of these issues than their parents.

I had a parent at our May conferences say, "Oh, yes, Mr. Borst. OK, you're the one who has my daughter going around the house turning out lights to save energy." Well, it's not me, it's her (their) raised awareness.

Another almost-funny thing was that they all got these yellow reusable shopping bags at the Green Festival. So, kids in the Current Events class decided to try to figure out how many plastic bags they'll save in the next year if they just stopped getting them, period. They decided to go home and interview their parents about their "bagging habits." One of the boys said, "My mom is gonna get mad at me for asking this stuff -- I think she feels guilty." There's no question that the Green Festival and the "bag monster" and the like has made that priority a sticky one in their minds.