About this Parachute
Story
Mountainside Montessori parachute was created by our Adolescent class (7-9th graders). They decided to implement the color wheel they had recently studied, then each took on a section. We are a small 18 month-15years Montessori school in Marshall, Virginia with eight adolescent students. Beyond their academic program, our Adolescents run a farm and several other businesses. They raise layer hens and recently raised four heritage pigs. One of the pigs was raised for a farm-to-table meal they planned, prepared, and served with the support of a local restaurant with all proceeds going to their program. The other three pigs the students have raised for meat for buyers within our community. The Adolescents are responsible for all aspects of their businesses including decisions, marketing, finances and tracking, and coming to do animal chores on weekends. At Mountainside we are committed to connecting to students with nature and providing the space for them to be independent, responsible learners who discover their passions and become positive global citizens.
Mountainside's parachute will be displayed this weekend on the National Mall as part of the Zero Hour Youth March. Here is its special back story from our Adolescent Guide, Theo:
One of the gifts of Facebook is reconnecting with people from earlier in your life and discovering the amazing work people are doing in the larger world. I came across a post about Parachutes for the Planet organized by Mother Earth Project. My students were eager to participate in the project so we reached out. We were to create a twelve foot diameter "parachute" to be displayed for Earth Day 2018 on the National Mall. We used a canvas fabric which we had to transform from a rectangle into a circle and designed and painted our message regarding the earth and climate change.
The website had asked people to contact Mother Earth Project (MEP) if they were committed to creating a parachute. I did this and realized the co-founder was a peer from high school, Barton Rubenstein. Barton and I quickly reconnected through email and he was excited to receive our finished parachute complete with photos of various stages of its creation and a drone video when completed. MEP has been receiving parachutes from all over the world. They did not meet their original goal of obtaining two hundred parachutes to display on the National Mall for Earth Day so they have rescheduled the display for the middle of October 2018. Some parachutes, however, including ours, will be part of the Zero Hour Youth March this Saturday on July 21, 2018 on the National Mall in DC.
Our parachute has gotten a fair amount of attention on the Mother Earth Project Facebook page as part of their cover photo (https://www.facebook.com/motherearthprojectmep/). Barton has also taken Mountainside's parachute back to our high school where he talked about his work as an artist and as co-founder of Mother Earth Project. Our parachute looks forward to hopefully traveling the world to be displayed along with others. It is a small world when these types of connections happen but also a fragile world which we must be committed to caring for and protecting.