The Catalog Canceling Challenge

Lindsay Sheperd - a 2nd grade teacher in Winston-Salem, North Carolina - writes, “This is a fabulous project that can reach across the curriculum to teach environmental issues, responsibility and citizenship, and math. Our 2nd grade class at St. Leo School canceled 625 catalogs over the past two months. I am proud of the initiative and motivation my 28 2nd graders had in tackling this project.” Here are four of her students standing proudly over their pile!

Several hundred Kindergarten through Grade Five students at The The John Eliot School in Needham, MA canceled 2,300 catalogs in in only fourteen days!! See their pile in the photo below, or click here to see a slide show about their efforts. Thank you Seta Nersessian! And I hear that The Newman School in Needham has started a Catalog Challenge, too! Go Needham!

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After researching facts on-line about the negative ecological and health impacts of car idling pollution, the 4th grade made a bulletin board for the school: “American Idol is Okay, BUT Americans Idling Their Cars Is Not!” (Thanks to Chloë for the great title!)

Next, we thought it was time to tell the world. The day before Spring Break, 12 teams of 4th graders had 30 minutes each to come up with a short commercial encouraging others to idle/pollute less. We pretended that they would be shown during the next Super Bowl! We will share the full length video at our school’s Earth Day assembly in two weeks.

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Here’s a great video about WHY we should do any of this hard work to help the environment. Why recycle? Why cancel catalogs? Why be Green? WHY? This is why:

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The day we were on TV, one of my student’s moms emailed 200 friends about CatalogChoice.org and 80 of them opted out of 2,000 catalogs and emailed all of their friends to do the same. One mom. One day. She’s even getting her son’s soccer team to join our Catalog Canceling Challenge. Another parent in my school is starting a team with many families on his street.

Such ripples are rolling and rising into waves. I’ve received emails from from teachers and parents in MA, CT, NH, VT, NY, PA, VA, OH, MO, OR, CA, and HI who are interested in forming teams. If you’re from a state I haven’t listed, email me at tedwellscatablog@gmail.com and this list will grow!

Speaking of waves, our class video and interview on The TODAY SHOW helped CatalogChoice.org get 57,000 new members that one day. People opted out of over 300,000 catalogs that one day. “Catalog Choice” was the most searched term in the world on Google for over four hours … that one day. But that day is past and so many more lie ahead. In these coming days, what will you be doing to help the environment?

Hopefully you do many, many things. Perhaps our elementary school project will feed you with hope and convince many others that a clean, green, and sustainable future is possible … one day.

Below is a “behind the scenes” video about our TODAY SHOW experience.

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We were thrilled by our TODAY SHOW experience and the chance to tell MILLIONS about our simple, yet powerful project! It is truly special to see how a dedicated group of kids can make this world a better place. Thank you so much Ann Curry!!

500 people an hour are visiting this blog since our interview four hours ago! We’re hopeful that many schools (or even colleges! or churches! or scout troops! or soccer teams! or book clubs! or … any group really) will be inspired to join this simple tree, water, energy, and climate saving contest. It could be an engaging, educational Earth ‘Day’ event for March or April, if you’re looking for one.

Referring to this friendly contest, Ann Curry ended by saying, The TODAY SHOW “may just pick the school that wins that Challenge AND PUT THEM ON TV!” Perhaps this will be your group?! And if not…we all win together, anyway.

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Ann Curry of NBC’s TODAY SHOW found out about our little catalog canceling project and loves it!! She’s going to show part of our movie (below) then interview our class live on Thursday, January 24 between 7:30-8:00AM!!! I’m not joking - this is real. The kids are thrilled and I’m still pinching myself…

We were also recently featured on CatalogChoice.org’s blog.

And on MeetTheGreens.org’s amazing website for kids.

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THE movie that NRDC passed on to NBC and started all this!

The movie below teaches you how to cancel by phone.

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Everyone at school is stunned by how many catalogs our 146 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students canceled. I had to triple the size of the original storage bin I built! Just how many catalogs did they cancel? Check out these piles!

The kids canceled 4,175 catalogs! Last Friday the kids counted out 167 piles of 25 during two recesses. They weighed each pile and found that we had 1,117 pounds of paper. Or 7.7 pounds canceled per child. If the 146 kids canceled 4,175 catalogs, some quick math tells us that’s 28.6 catalogs per child. This is the figure schools - large or small - can use to compete (in a friendly way) with each other. A small school could cancel only a few hundred catalogs, but have more catalogs canceled per child and therefore “win.”

Check out these detailed results for math activity ideas. If each of our 4,175 catalogs canceled doesn’t show up only four times in the next year or two, we will have saved 47 trees, 25,050 gallons of water, and the energy equivalent of taking 2.5 cars off the road! Not bad for a an elementary school!

But I keep wondering, “What if dozens of schools did this? Could we cancel 100,000 catalogs? Could we help planet Earth in her time of need?” And I nod and I say to myself, “I hope so!”

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