The recent tragedies in Japan have inspired many to attempt to find a way to do their part to help with the effort; this action has not been spared by the elementary students at Wilson Elementary, who are now finding their own way to help.

For the last few weeks, the students have worked to create paper cranes to donate to the Architecture for Humanity’s reconstruction efforts in Japan. The Bezos Family Foundation has agreed to work with the group to donate a maximum of $200,000, or $2 per crane; once these cranes have been received, they will be combined to create an art installation that stands as a representation of a gift from students around the world to the Japanese children.

The origins of this project at Wilson Elementary started with third grade teacher Jan Ridley, who has established relations with former students of hers that currently live in Japan.

“My third graders wanted to do something to help Japan after the quake and tsunami,” Ridley said. “I shared with them that I had three former students that went to Wilson Elementary and moved back to Japan.”

“After spring break was over, I was talking to our librarian about what we could do for Japan, and she came across a library list-serve posting about The Bezos Family Foundation offering $2 for each crane sent to them,” Ridley said. “After passing this info on to our staff at a faculty meeting all the teachers talked to their classes about it to see if the children wanted to help out.”

Beyond just providing these children the opportunity to do their part, there are many valuable lessons to be learned through this origami project. The cranes tie into the subject of math with symmetry, art with the folding, science with the weather and natural disasters, language with legends and social studies with geography. The students are also reading Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, to learn the history behind these origami creatures and more about the culture of Japan.

“As a school, we hope to send many well wishes for the entire country of Japan to fully recuperate from the earthquake and tsunami,” Ridley said. “We will follow up with my former students in Japan to share with them what Wilson Elementary has done to help their country.”

The original goal of Wilson Elementary was to raise 1,000 cranes, a number they have far surpassed since then. Upon hearing of the effort of the elementary students, however, students at Coppell High School that are members of National Honor Society and National Art Honor Society stepped in as well to do what they could.

On Monday, April 4, students in these two groups met in the large commons of the cafeteria to work together to make paper cranes to donate to the effort.

“It was kind of a last minute thing,” National Honor Society President Judy Hong said. “But we heard about what they were doing at Wilson, and figured that it was an easy way for us to help out, too.”

“It was really fun,” senior Akanksha Joglekar said. “We all got together to work on creating cranes out of the colorful paper. It took a little while to get the hang of making cranes at first – I messed up a lot – but after a while, I was able make them much more quickly. It feels good to not have only been able to learn how to create something new, but to do it to help others.”

The last day for students to donate cranes to Wilson was Tuesday, April 5. The total number of cranes collected by the two schools adds up to 3,746 cranes, equaling $7,492 in donations.