Recycling
Then she went over to the open vise, placed the cardboard on top of the opening and easily cut the piece of cardboard.

When I saw this happen in front of me I was amazed!  I had never thought of cutting a piece of cardboard with a saw.

This smart student  used a piece of cardboard to design and make something and it was free.

It completely changed my way of thinking about how I was going to make stuff in the classroom.  I was going to reuse cardboard? 
How my class and I started recycling.

I taught kids how to design projects, use tools and make things out of wood, metal and plastic.

As you can see by my classroom photo,  I designed and supplied my classroom with a lot of tools.

When I first started teaching in a classroom, I bought some wood  to make projects but I had a problem.

I wanted everyone in my class to make projects. To do this I needed a lot of wood. Good wood is expensive
!

Also, it took a lot of time to cut and smooth the wood in my home shop.

Until one day an amazing thing happened!


My class and I were having lunch. One of my students asked me, after she had finished her lunch, if she could work on finishing a project that she was working on. I said it was fine.

She had brought in a small piece of cardboard about the size of large book.She opened up one of my bench vises, went over to my tool rack and grabbed a keyhole saw.

A keyhole saw is small, and has fine teeth.
  Keyhole Saw
Fine teeth
This is a recycling bag that a student used to carry boxboard (cereal boxes) from home to the classroom. The boxboard was used to construct projects.
I stored the boxboard in a laundry baskets. The laundry basket made it easy to move the boxboard around the classroom's work benches.
Another recyclable material  we used a lot in the classroom was cardboard. Here we are designing and constructing a castle with a drawbridge.
Recycled Materials I Use
When buying baskets for your class, buy six, high quality, all the same size.
The caretaker in my school appreciated the class placing all paper in one plastic bag.