Ritenour School District News

Iveland Students Publish Book About Helping Environment

12-3-08

Fifth grade students in Ms. Mitzy Mergenthaler's class at Iveland Elementary authored a book titled "It All Comes Back to Us, Ways to Care for Our Earth."

Fifth graders at Iveland Elementary are officially published authors. Students in Ms. Mitzy Mergenthaler's class authored and illustrated a book titled "It All Comes Back to Us, Ways to Care for Our Earth." The book was published through Studentreasures, a company that takes students' writing and illustrations and publishes full-color, hardbound books.

"This summer I was involved with a book study on ‘14 Things Great Teachers Do Differently,' and a big piece of the study was how to make it ‘cool to care' in our school," explained Mergenthaler. "I wanted to incorporate this idea into our curriculum and did this with writing."

While studying expository writing, students researched ways to care for the Earth. After the research, they each presented one way to care for the Earth and wrote one paragraph on how to do this. The result of their work is a beautiful hardbound book. The cover features a photo of each of Mergenthaler's students surrounding a heart-shaped Earth.

One of the books is on display in the Iveland library and several more can be viewed in Mergenthaler's classroom.

"I am very proud of my class," Mergenthaler said. "They did an amazing job researching, writing and illustrating this book."

"It All Comes Back to Us, Ways to Care for Our Earth," was written by Iveland Elementary fifth grade students.