Transforming waste into a fresh way to create fire
News | Published on December 17, 2024 at 12:48pm EST | Author: henningmaster
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Henning School Principal Thomas Williams joined fourth grade students in Christina Wohlwend’s fourth grade class as they turned pencil shavings and old crayons into fire starters. The students learned about recycling and how items can be reused for something else, as opposed to simply throwing them away. If the project is a success the students may sell fire starters in the future to help fund special class trips and items for the classroom.
By Chad Koenen
Publisher
Fourth grade students at Henning School are having the unique chance to play with fire in school—or at least play with different ways to create fire. ¶ A new project in Christina Wohlwend’s fourth grade classroom has turned into a fun activity to show students how recycling materials that most people would discard could be transformed into a new item. ¶ “What can we do with our crayons and our ample amounts of pencil shavings,” said Wohlwend as she helped students place the correct amount of pencil shavings and crayons in a small mold on each table. ¶ The idea for the new project came after the fourth grade teacher learned that a standard crayon can burn for 30 minutes. She began experimenting with adding pencil shavings and seeing if melted crayons could act as a fire starter for bonfires during the summer months.
Henning fourth grade students gathered around tables last week to create fire starters out of old crayons and pencil shavings. The work was part of a recycling project to show how items can be reused and reimagined, as opposed to simply being thrown away.
After a bit of trial and error, Wohlwend was able to find a successful concoction of pencil shavings and crayons that can be melted into a small round mold. The mold can be used as a fire starter that can show how products can be changed and recycled to find a new use.
The first fire starter mold was created on November 1, and since that time, Wohlwend’s students have spent time in the classroom transforming unwanted pencil shavings and crayons into a new custom created fire starter. The students collected the pencil shavings in classrooms in the school and have not had a shortage of old and unwanted crayons that they have located as well.
Last week the students shaved parts of unwanted crayons and layered it with pencil shavings into a plastic mold. The items were eventually melted into a circular fire starter mold in the classroom.
The goal is to see how the initial batch of fire starters go over and potentially branch out of the classroom later this year and sell the fire starter to the greater Henning community.
Wohlwend said the hope is to not only teach students a fun way to make fire starters that can be used later in life, but also potentially make some additional money for the classroom that could be used for things like a field trip that may not otherwise be able to be funded for the fourth grade students.
“It’s taking a little idea and seeing how it develops,” said Wohlwend.
While the students have quite a bit of crayons and pencil shavings for the time being, Wohlwend said anyone who may have some unwanted crayons at their home or pencil shavings and would like to donate them to the fire starter project can do so by dropping the items off at the district office.