The students from New Hope Christian School have a different view regarding the six acres surrounding their school. What seems to look like a dumpsite a few months ago for some, has been transformed into an urban jungle.
Mary Leslie Ramsey, a member of the school's staff, said "All of the trash in our surrounding neighborhood flows across our forest property,"
Ms. Ramsey thought litter bugs were the problem; but, it turns out the property has an overland storm drain that pushed trash to the property.
"I hated the idea of always having trash in the forest."
Finally, with the help of volunteers from across the city, including Serve901 and Clean Memphis, the students cleared the drains our that covered the way for the mighty "Mini-ssippi" river project.
Tiffany Reed, a student said "This is the first time I've ever seen something so creative put into life."
Bridges inspired by the Hernando de Soto and the Memphis-Arkansas bridges were built by the students. They sourced out information about the river and became aware on what lives in it and how lives were saved by it.
"We did some field trips down to the river, took a ride on the riverboat, went to Mud Island, went to Slave Haven," Ramsey said.
New Hope Christian School has a total of 431 students from pre-K to sixth grade. The sixth-graders worked on different facets of the river project.
Tiffany Reed also added "I did the signs that you'll see and I also created the website,"
Reports on all the things they learned about the river were also penned by the students and to add to that, they recorded what they learned. Students from the information department compiled stuff that can be accessed with an iPhone using QR codes.
"It's Mark Twain, the Underground Railroad and its music that the river has inspired which helped us with the project," Ramsey said.
"I'm really excited for what other people in Memphis and Frayser will think about when they see the impact that New Hope brought with this project," another student, Christian Arocho said.
The pupils learned about the five major cities that sit on the Mississippi river. The Mini-ssippi features landmarks like the St. Louis Arch.
"We have city scapes that are built to scale," Ramsey said.
"We've put a lot of work into this all year and I love to see how it paid off," student Kendall Davis said.
According to Ms. Ramsey, a lot of children in Memphis don't know the value of the river to the city, but that's changing thanks to the Mini-ssippi project. She also added "It has so many hidden gems in it, and thats why it's so amazing that we live here."
Not only did the students learn to appreciate the river, but they also learned what needs to be done to protect one of our most valuable assets thanks to the project.
