|
 In
2004, Linda Splain was looking for ways to help her fourth and fifth
grade students grasp understanding of what a million really is. She
decided that pop tabs would be the perfect item due to their small
size and easy storage. By the end of the first year, her students
were a fourth of the way there; they had collected 252,906 pop tabs.
The second year they made it halfway to a million with 500,155 pop
tabs. Now, Mrs. Splain was running out of room to store them. The
classes loaded all 400 pounds of their pop tabs and took them to
Ronald McDonald House in Springfield.
Ronald McDonald House is a national organization that supports
families when they have a child receiving medical care in the
hospital. They provide meals, lodging, and other support services at
no cost to the families. The pop tabs that are collected for the
Ronald McDonald House are recycled to help raise money to support
the families that stay there. CEL’s 2005 donation provided lodging
for one family for up to 12 days.
Mrs. Splain didn’t stop there. Her and her class
encouraged everyone they knew to keep collecting pop tabs. In
2007-08, they reached the one million mark with 1,118,987 total!
Again, Mrs. Splain and her students kept going!
In 2011, Mrs. Splain and her fourth grade class were recognized by
Ronald McDonald House for collecting the most pop tabs in a contest
against 26 area schools. That year CEL collected 482,700 pop tabs
(the most in one year ever)!
By her retirement in the spring of 2019, Mrs. Splain’s students had
collected a total of 3,669,795 pop tabs. Throughout the years, she
enriched her math class using the pop tabs to help her students
understand place value, estimation, measurement, mass, and skip
counting and built a concrete understanding of a million. More
importantly, she instilled a sense of community and generosity by
helping others.
In the fall of 2019, Mrs. Lessen took over teaching fourth grade and
continued Mrs. Splain’s pop tab tradition. She, like Mrs. Splain,
uses the pop tabs to enrich her math class and create hands-on
opportunities. Students use the tabs for activities involving skip
counting, multiplication, and weighing. Students also use the pop
tabs to create their own Esti-Mysteries and Estimation Clipboards
modeled after Steve Wyboney.
The pop tab collection tradition at Chester-East Lincoln School has
not only helped students grasp important mathematical concepts but
also instilled a deep sense of community and giving. Through
collecting, counting, and donating pop tabs, Chester- East Lincoln’s
students have learned valuable lessons in generosity, teamwork, and
the impact that they can have on others in their community. Over the
years, this project has grown into a powerful example of how small
actions can lead to big changes.
2004-05 4th grade class (1st class)
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2004-05 4th grade class (1st class)
2024-25 4th grade students
Two students worked together to create this Esti-Mystery modeled
after Steve Wyboney. They counted the tabs, arranged them in the cup
then came up with the clues.
Did you figure out the answer?
It’s 23.
[Tiffany Lessen, Chester-East Lincoln
School]
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