Students in teacher Elizabeth Kohart’s class participate in Genius Hour once a week, a time in which the students work on something that interests them.

Fifth-graders Amelie Zavala and Kate Weathermon and sixth-grader Chelsie Bielas decided to start a school project by purchasing metal silverware to reduce the use of plastic.

The students go around the school and collect bottles and cans every Friday to return them for the deposit. The money then goes toward purchasing the metal silverware.

Using metal silverware instead of plastic will use less trash, Weathermon said. It will also save money by using the metal silverware over and over again.

“You just have to wash them,” Zavala said.

The students have raised $27.80 so far, with the goal of raising around $200, if not more.

“We have people that have donated bags of bottles that they’ve collected,” Bielas said.

Their project started a couple weeks ago and runs through the middle of December.

“It’s been great seeing them,” Kohart said. “They’re so excited every Thursday to start working in Genius Hour. I’ve done nothing to push. This is all them. That’s the point of Genius Hour. They get to work on what excites them.”

Kohart said to see the student’s faces every time their fundraising total increases is great. She said it’s great to see the community involved.

“It makes me proud of them,” she said.

The students have learned a lot of different things during the first couple of weeks while working on their project. Weathermon said they’re learning about how people react and how they think about recycling.

“We try to tell people about how they can stop and what it can do,” she said.

“We learned how to work as a team,” Zavala said. “It was kind of stressful at the beginning, because we wouldn’t listen to each other.”

For more information about the student’s project, contact St. Ignatius at 989-734-3443.

Julie Goldberg can be reached at 989-358-5688 or jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com.