Unique MCHS Program Utilizes Trans-World Project to Learn about Conservation and Culture

Madison Consolidated High School Select Place teacher Jared Kempton and a few students from his Independent Learning Academy at MCHS are currently working on a project to try to improve the environment’s health. Not only are he and his students helping the environment with this project, but they are also challenging their minds and going out of their comfort zone by working with students from other countries.

The team worked with a company called United Planet that tied the students together between each country to perform the projects. According to the United Planet website, United Planet is a non-profit organization with a mission to create a global community, one relationship at a time. We connect volunteers who want to make a difference with communities in more than 30 countries, where they learn, teach, work, engage and immerse themselves in a culture outside their comfort zone. 

Kempton told us that the first project the students are taking part in was the “plastic boat” project where a team of students worked together to build a plastic boat and will attempt to race them in the Ohio River soon.

The other project that the students are participating in is getting residents to sign up for an energy kit called MyEnergy, where the students are attempting to get 100 signatures from people to sign up to receive the kit by the end of the year.

Autumn Dempler, a freshman participant, told us that the kit includes “lightbulbs and other things to conserve energy in the home.” Dempler also explained that to receive a kit, a person can go to myenergykit.com and sign up to get one in the mail.

Select Place students were also given the opportunity to speak to students from around the world to places like Jordan, Greenland, and Iraq via Skype call. The purpose of the call was to describe the types of projects that each area of the world was participating in while also telling the other lands about their respective cultures.

Dempler also explained that she was surprised that the students from other schools were the same as us in the aspects that they dressed the same and were taught the same.

“(It was) interesting because she had never got to speak with students from other countries and it was obvious that they did not know some words from our country because she kept saying words like ‘ya’ll’ and ‘oof’ which they didn’t understand,” Dempler said of one of Skype recipients.