Students Design Tab House for Raising Money
After collecting nearly 50 pounds of pop can tabs last school year, students at Summit Elementary have set a new goal of collecting 75 pounds by the end of May. What will they do with all these tabs? The school will donate them to the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Ohio (RMHC) and the tabs will be recycled. The charity receives market value for the metal.
The Ronald McDonald House is a charity that helps families in need through donations and volunteer work.
Margaret Mary Luzny leads the newly formed Character Council, which is made up of nine students and is represented by 3rd and 4th graders. The group meets once a month, focusing on how they can help their community. Mrs. Luzny said they discussed some community project ideas and the students remembered the pop tab challenge from the previous year. In order to meet the larger goal, the students wanted to build a house to collect the tabs instead of using trash bags.
Since Summit Elementary is a STEM school, Mrs. Luzny wanted to incorporate the “design cycle” into the development of what is known as the Tab House. The students toured the FabLab at eSTEM Academy and then discussed ideas. Casey Stammer, a FabLab intern at eSTEM Academy, and Jacob Coley, also of eSTEM, worked with the students in helping them design the Tab House prototype. After some changes to the design, the full scale version was built and is located near the cafeteria and gymnasium. All that’s left to do is install Plexiglas windows and paint the exterior of the Tab House. Thanks to the efforts and abilities of the high school students, the Tab House will be completed by the end of February.
This service project is a great learning experience to partake in, said Mrs. Luzny, and could not have been completed without the help of Stammer and Coley.
The elementary students also received a tour of the RMHC facility (pictured above) near Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Mrs. Luzny said, “I wanted to share with my council members the amazing things that RMHC can do with the simple tab.”
According to the RMHC website, the charity has served families with seriously ill children by providing a home-away-from-home at the Columbus Ronald McDonald House for more than three decades. From its beginnings as a grassroots movement established by a partnership between volunteers and local McDonald’s Owner/Operators, the Charity has served thousands of families in their deepest times of need.