Mrs. Zacher, art teacher at Alden High School, never likes to let potential art supplies go to waste and as this Christmas season approaches she came up with the most wonderful idea. Her sculpting and ceramics class will be taking up-cycling to the next level while also getting into the holiday spirit. The class will be getting the recyclable items from either their homes or by gathering items from around the school and transforming them into table top Christmas trees. Most of the class decided to use items that are recycled often such as plastic bottles, paper, metal cans, and cardboard. Mrs. Zacher has stated that she tried to do this project in the past but the end result wasn’t what she hoped. This year she decided to put the class into 6 small groups, this way the students were able to bounce their ideas off one another and expand on their original thoughts. After asking the students their opinion on this particular project, everyone seems extremely excited about it. When asked why they responded with the fact they were over flowing with ideas and that there were so many ways to approach this project and that Mrs. Zacher was very open to their ideas. And they were right, all the trees are completely different from one another. Even though some of the groups used the same/similar materials, none of trees look alike and are all unique. Overall the project was a smashing success and Mrs. Zacher says she can’t wait to try this again with future classes.