CCMS eighth graders reimagine rubbish

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

Those two broken-down wooden chair backs are now a very useful bench. Those discarded musical instruments can now be interesting decor in a music lover’s bedroom. That old teacher’s desk is now a comfortable — and practical — two-person chair. Those discarded plastic spoons from the school lunch line can be crafted into mirrors.

With a little imagination and a little hard work, eighth grade students at Charles City Middle School are proving that one person’s trash becomes another person’s treasure.

The entire class has been participating in a project called “Rubbish Reimagined” for the last few months. The students have been “upcycling” projects — that is, they have been taking what appears to be junk and crafting it into useful or decorative products or items.

Blake Wilson, for example, designed a hall tree to hang coats and hats out of an old door.

“It started with a door, and I was just going to do something easy and make a table, but then I got into it and I thought it would be cool if I made a hall tree,” said Wilson, who said he got some ideas from Charles City industrial tech teacher Jim Lundberg.

“I’ve enjoyed this project,” Wilson said. “It’s been fun.”

Wilson and the rest of the eighth graders will put their completed projects up for sale on Wednesday this week, from 12:45 to 2:15 p.m. at Comet Gym. The public is welcome to view and purchase the products, and the proceeds will go to charities of each student’s choosing — or back into the eighth grade fund for future projects. Anything left unsold Wednesday will be up for sale again Thursday from 9-10 a.m.

Teacher Amanda Rahmiller, who has been advising the students on the Rubbish Reimagined project, said the sale is “kind of an exhibition of their work as well, so I would encourage people to talk to as many students as possible and ask them questions about the process.”

“They are experts on their pieces,” she said.

Rahmiller said it was the students themselves who came up with the name “Rubbish Reimagined.” Class discussion earlier this year had alerted the eighth graders to the fact that one of the standards for their class was that they needed to design a method to monitor and minimize their impact on the environment.

“I thought we could talk about that — but it would be way more fun to actually dig in and do something,” Rahmiller said.

So the class started watching TV shows like “Flea Market Flip” on the Home and Garden Network, among others. The programs showed people taking junk that was headed for a landfill and turning it into items they could sell. The students searched online on Pinterest and elsewhere and found examples of “upcycling.”

“I asked everyone to come up with 10 ideas, list the pros and cons of each, and decide what was feasible,” Rahmiller said.

Some of the students worked individually, some as groups, and some with one other partner. All had to give a business pitch, create a logo, an idea of what to do with proceeds, and an idea of what the upcycled item was going to cost.

“They had to have all that figured out before we gave them the green light to go ahead,” said Rahmiller, who added that the class broke into more than 60 different businesses for the project.

After two months of work, the students were coming up with a wide variety of things, from attractive art and craft items to useful, practical products.

One student group partnered with Saint Charles Brewery in Charles City. The brewer typically has spent grains left over after brewing beer that just go to waste. The students took the spent grains, added some eggs, flour and peanut butter and made them into dog treats. They packaged the dog treats to sell, and they will be available on Wednesday.

“That was a really neat partnership here in town,” Rahmiller said.

Students Teagan Prigge and Jillian Mutch called their business, “Upcycling Queens.” The two make old musical instruments and turn them into home decor, such as lamps, nightstands and shelves.

“We love music and just wanted to express that in our work,” Prigge said. “It was really fun.”

“We’re both really into music, so we’re very active in that,” added Mutch. “It’s also great to work with a partner.”

Another partnership includes sisters Janila and Nakila Toney. The pair took an old teacher’s desk from the North Grand Building and made it into a comfortable bench. They flipped the bench and the desk drawers and added a cushion.

“First we drew out a plan, and then we remodeled it,” said Janila. “On the bottom piece we built pieces with wood glue and stacked them together.”

The two painted the bench and added a cushion, and hope to sell the reimagined furniture for $430.

“The cushion, we made that out of plywood and put high-density foam over it and added the fabric.” Janila said. “It is comfortable.”