By Jennifer Kohlhepp, Managing Editor
CRANBURY — Sixth-graders at Cranbury School were inspired to do more with their writing than just putting it on a page.
Language arts teacher Elizabeth Grimaldi asked her students to put their research into action. They learned how to create research papers by selecting a service organization, learning about it and writing about its main functions. Then, students were encouraged to do something to help that organization with its mission, to keep a journal about that work and to write a letter to the organization describing their service project.
“We took an idea, wrote about it and made it happen,” student Kylee Tucholski said.
Many of the students conducted fundraisers for their service organization and sent money they raised along with the letters they wrote to their organizations.
Kylee chose the Pediatric Hydrocephalus Foundation. Hydrocephalus is a medical condition in which there is an abnormal accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain, which causes pressure inside the skull and may result in convulsions, tunnel vision or mental disability.
“My brother has hydrocephalus and the foundation has always supported my family,” she said. “A lot of people don’t know what it is so I wanted to raise awareness and give back to the foundation for what they do for a lot of people.”
Eva Zhu and her classmate Andrew Ciardella both wrote about the World Wildlife Fund, learning about endangered species.
“Humans kill their habitats and they haven’t done anything to hurt us,” Eva said.
She conducted a bake sale to raise money for the fund while Andrew created a music video that he gave to people who donated.
When Aurora Yuan found out that more than 800 million people in the world experience hunger on a daily basis while researching Act Against Hunger, she “felt disbelief and anger” so she raised money for that organization.
Amy Kim researched HeForShe, which is a solidarity movement for gender equality and discovered there is a wage gap as well as struggle and discrimination in the workplace for transgender people. She placed collection cups around her dad’s workplace to raise money for that service organization.
Her love of animals propelled Victoria Pagano’s research into the Humane Society. She found it disturbing that 1 million cats and dogs die from animal abuse and neglect each year. She wanted to raise awareness and funding “to provide better conditions for animals” so she made magnets and sold them to earn $70 to donate to the society.
James Novac researched UNICEF, which helps children in poverty suffering from diseases in Africa and Southeast Asia.
“I chose UNICEF because I thought it’s very sad to see how fortunate we are to have all we need, like vaccines, and they don’t have anything. They suffer and thousands die every year from diseases we can easily protect them from,” James said.
Through his research Timothty Evidente discovered the American Red Cross helps kids recover after natural disasters, supplying them with shelter, food and water. He went around his neighborhood with a wagon and collected non-perishable food items and money to donate to the chapter of the organization in Princeton.
Ryan Schilling chose to help children living in poverty through the Child Aid Society.
Peter Gittings wrote about the Wounded Warrior Project.
“I chose this organization because these people cared to fight for our country and the freedoms that we have and I wanted to help them,” Peter said.
Leah Ziegler researched Action Against Hunger and donated $55 to help the organization.
Subha Sidakumar wanted to raise awareness about autism and wrote her paper about Autism Speaks. She sold drawings to friends to raise money for the organization.
Africare, which helps protect African communities from ebola, received help from Chaitanya Pemmasani.
“I was saddened to see what people had in Africa with the virus and the living conditions,” she said.
Chief School Administrator/Principal Susan Genco said the students learned an important lesson from the research in action project.
“It does not matter how old you are,” Ms. Genco said. “If you are passionate about doing something, you can do it.”
Witnessing her class put their writing into action made Ms. Grimaldi “think more positive about the future,” she said.
The students gave presentations about the research and community service work they did on the last day of school, which was June 18.
“This is a great opportunity to thank Ms. Grimaldi as our teacher for helping us become the people we are,” Kaylee said.
