Awareness… Compassion… Activism… These are a few of the concepts students at Bellwood-Antis High School learned about during their recent participation in the One Million Bones Challenge—a project created to promote awareness of genocide and other humanitarian crises that exist in our world, this very day.

Following an assembly program to learn about the One Million Bones Organization and its mission, the Blue Devil Nation was presented with a goal: To create 1,500 bones. Not only did our students exceed expectations by generating 2,570 handmade bones which translated to $2,570 to help their counterparts in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia, but they learned valuable life lessons. For instance, involvement in a project of this nature demonstrates how they can become an active part of the solution to eradicate atrocities in other countries by donating their time and talents.

Pictures and videos were taken throughout the activity, then Senior Kyle Bartlett—with the help of Mike Wilson and Bailey Campbell—created a video mash-up highlighting the efforts of the B-A student body’s successful completion of a community service project. A high five to these students for taking the initiative to create a meaningful finished project. Check it out below!

So, what happened to all of the bones our students created? They are destined to become part of the 1,000,000 bones that are being collected to form an installation of collaborative artwork to be placed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. from June 8th-10th, 2013. Besides serving as a site of conscience to remember victims and survivors, this event will act as a visible petition to raise awareness of the issues that exist as well as a call upon our government to take much needed and long overdue action.

Kudos to the BAHS administration, particularly Assistant Principal Zac Wynkoop, for organizing and facilitating this very worthwhile project in our district!

Learn more about the One Million Bones project by visiting their web site here.

Classroom Connection:

Show the One Million Bones Project video as a way to create awareness of the genocide that still exists in our society and to show students how they can have a voice in the solution to these problems. Or better yet—set up an assembly program at your school to to promote this very important topic.

For those who may be wondering, Kyle—one of my former Multimedia I students—used the following tech tools to produce the video.

» Photo Story

» Audacity

» Movie Maker

» Wordle—Text images

It’s awesome to know that the knowledge and skills students have learned in a course extend beyond the semester!