McCutcheon Elementary School Chicago
Teacher: Kimberly Bendig, 5th Grade
The Problem
The problem in the community near McCutcheon School is dog feces. Some people do not think it is a problem but it is, people think dog feces is a problem in the community because they have seen dog feces on the their shoes, on the sidewalks and grass. When you are playing outside and you are running and suddenly you hear something like (SQUISH). You stop running and then you sit down and realize that you just stepped in dog poop, you think to yourself why did the owner just leave the poop in the playground where we play?! This poop attracts the flies and mice, and rats, it also makes it hard around if there are dog feces everywhere said one of the people we interviewed. She said that she has a dog and she picks up the poop every time but she does not like it that the other dog owners are not picking their dog's feces and being too lazy to pick it up, if there is nothing to do to stop the poo from spread around more if we do nothing now? We have to do something about dog feces now!
Our Proposal
What we plan to do is that we plan on interviewing dog owners and random children in the neighborhood and going to visit the Aldermen and asking him questions about what we could do to reduce dog feces and we asked him about some ideas to help reduce dog feces. What we also plan to do is that we will ask the people we interviewed some questions like: 1.) Do you think dog feces is a problem in the neighborhood? 2.) What do you do when your dog defecates on the ground? 3.) What do you think we can do to ensure that owners are picking up after their dogs? Those are the questions we asked the owners. We asked the children: 1.) Have you stepped in dog feces recently? 2.) If so, where? 3.) Do you think this a problem in the neighborhood? Those are the questions we asked the children. We also plan to put up recycled milk cartons with plastic bags in them to encouraged people to pick up their dogs poop
What We Did
What we did was that we got everyone to interview children and dog owners. What we also did was we asked them 3 questions which were: 1.) Do you think dog feces is a problem in the neighborhood? 2.) What do you do when your dog defecates on the sidewalk? 3.) What do you think we can do to ensure that owners are picking up after their dogs? Then we kept a t-chart of the children who said yes, that dog feces is a problem in the neighborhood and no it if wasn't a problem, and we did the same thing with the owners. That is some of the details we did to get other peoples opinion about the problem in the neighborhood.
Reflection
What we reflected on the problem was that so far in our collection of data we realize that more children and dog owners say that dog feces is a problem in the neighborhood and fewer people said that it wasn't a problem in the neighborhood. We also reflected that when the students are asking the owners about what they do when their dog defecates on the ground the owners show us the bags that they used to pick up the feces, and what we also noticed is that the owners without the bags to pick up the feces all say that they pick it up, those are some reflections we noticed about dog owners and the children we surveyed.
