Blogger: Zebastian Peñaloza/Grade 11
If we all put our little contribution to the world, it would constantly be growing and unifying our values. At ISM we always look for ways to help our community every year to make a beneficial and positive impact. Taking into consideration our contribution in recent years to our community, we had focused more on helping outside of our campus, but due to COVID-19 safety measures, it made it hard for us to donate to people in need, such as the orphanage. For this reason, this year’s service- learning project became school and planet-based. What’s better than taking care of our campus and making it more beautiful? We learned to value the Earth so what’s a better gift to nature than to take care of it.
As part of the process, each grade was assigned to an area on the school to work with. Students from 10th to 12th grades decided to make a small path garden in our cafeteria area. There was a lot of space there and when we used to go to school we would spend a good amount of time in the cafeteria. Many students brought in plants that they grew at home and others were bought. Regardless, the majority of them came to school, following safety COVID-19 protocols, and worked hard on the garden by planting and watering plants. Others worked hard to create the small path and painted part of it to add special details.
Not only did students work on this year’s service-learning project, but teachers did as well, by helping in one way or another to work as a team, dividing tasks equally, supporting us, and giving constructive opinions. Thanks to Mrs. Rania Yaacoub, students have obtained lots of information and have gotten to learn about how to properly take care of plants and how each of them requires different care.
This has been a great service-learning project since it will be long term and students are required to look out for their plants until May and take care of the garden in general by keeping it alive and clean until their graduation. Therewithal, we have learned to value the effort and dedication that’s needed to achieve the objectives, adding values such as kindness, patience, gratitude, and humility.
