Fifth grade students Layton Hays and Brylee Wilt wrote essays for the Whooo's Reading program that they shared with the elementary students.
The girls wrote to the prompt: Think about problems in your community, like littering, using cell phones while driving, or something else. Choose any issue that you think is important. Talk about the issue and what should change.
Community Issue - Littering
By Brylee Wilt
5th Grade Student
One problem that I see in our community is littering. I see littering going on everywhere here in Shelbina. This is a problem because it is taking time out of the people in the communities day to clean up this mess. It can harm animals such as cows, and deer. It can harm animals because animals can mistake the trash for food. This means these animals can eat it. This can be very bad for the animals. Another way this can harm the world is that eventually the trash can get into our water stream. This is a problem because if the trash stays in the water stream long enough, the germs from this trash in our water stream can poison the water in the stream. Littering can cause some public areas to be trashed and can cause these places to be shut down so they can be cleaned. Another problem with littering is kids leaving their trash out on school campus. This takes time out of our custodian's day to pick up the mess. The litter thrown in your school yard could end up in waterways and water bodies, leading to greater problems such as pollution, flooding, and habitat destruction. It can also pollute the air and harm humans. Littering has a risk of fire hazards, endangering, or even killing wildlife, and serious damage to waterways. Littering can affect farming. Plants absorb the harmful chemicals found in the litter. This can cause the plant to grow slowly and in some cases even die. Litter can smell and doesn’t look nice. There are hundreds of ways that littering can harm the world, these are just a few ways that litter can harm the earth.
School Community Issue - Respect for School Environment
By Layton Hays
5th Grade Student
One problem students face at South Shelby Elementary is being disrespectful to our school that was built a few years ago. Kids are leaving out their recess balls and other things on our playground when they are at recess and those things can be lost if they are not picking them up and putting them away correctly. Which is causing our janitors and other students to take time out of their day to pick it up.
Another thing we struggle with at SSE is kids kicking, hitting, and pulling things off the wall or touching them. This can cause some teachers' belongings or even artwork that has been displayed in our hallways that our students have made and they are getting ruined.
Something else that happens is kids' behavior in the hallways or our bathrooms. They are running in the halls and goofing around in the bathroom which has caused some kids to feel uncomfortable when they go to the bathroom.
Another issue that we struggle with is the way kids behave at lunch; they are throwing food at other people and making teachers have to get up to warn them which takes time out of our teacher's lunch. We also struggle with kids' behavior at recess; they are fighting and putting their hands on each other which makes some kids uncomfortable.
So students of South Shelby, please think about your decisions because it could affect you, your friends, and our school. This is the message I have for you; please be respectful to our school because it means the world to me.