Here in Alaska, when the sun shines, we try to get outside.  Last week was no different. The melting snow has given way to the soggy ground that we hope to develop in Ruth Arcand Park making it easier to envision the plans that we have been working on all winter.

Students reflected on this lengthy project earlier in the week.  Here is some of what they had to say:

I have learned that it takes so much longer to design and put a park together then I thought it would. When we first learned about the project in 6th grade I thought, oh cool we get to design a park?! I had imagined that we would design the park, hire people to build it, find enough money for the project, and just build the park in the woods. I never imagined that it would require applying for grants, going to community meets, collaborating with all these different organizations, and I never imagined it would cost so much! I think this is the most important thing I have learned because it shows that we live in reality and not everything is easy. Everything requires work.
– Maya

The most important thing I’ve learned during the project is that it’s a lot more fun to work on something when you’re doing it for a cause. With the park project, we are trying to develop the park so that it benefits everyone in the community, not for self pleasure.
– Keno

I think that the best work that I have done with this project so far is when I worked on writing out the speech/script that we would present at the community council meeting. A group of us stayed in for recess so that we could finish it and perfect it before the meeting that night. I was really proud of how it turned out and I was glad that the people there liked our idea.
–  Lilly

The most important thing I’ve learned doing this project is how difficult it is to make something happen that changes the community. It takes a lot of time and effort to think of ideas and plans, and you have to get a lot of approval and help from other people. It’s not something you can just do in a day.
– Tully

The most important thing I learned was that no matter what you do, it takes time. Even if the task is boring, you have to push through it. Many times during the park project, I would want to be doing something else like science. Also it helped that I was surrounded by friends, it made the project go by faster. Also this gave me a look into what the real world is like. As kids, often times we are given a sugar coated version of problems. When we were faced with problems, they were not sugar coated, and we had to face them.
– Debra

Look for these reflections and a complete display of the project in the alcove by the gym.