TIMONIUM, Md. — At the Odyssey School, students learn four pillars: respect, hard work, honesty and kindness.
A couple of years ago, Lauren Schwartz, a math teacher, came up with an idea on how to combine teaching math and kindness. She called it "Math for a Cause".
"It's really a student-led project where for a month they bring in loose change and at the end of the month they get to decide where to donate the money to," she said.
Students went to great lengths to find spare change, from their family's cars to their parents' pockets.
They brought in their change and sorted them by value. In the end, the third grade math class brought in the most loose change, totaling $130.
"It was completely up to them how much money they brought in and they were super engaged in the project," said Schwartz. "[They] really understood at the end of the month how to count money, learned about decimals, learned about data collection and then were able to take those skills and use them outside of the classroom."
The total amount raised among all the grade levels was a little over $200 so the students chose to split the money between St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital and the Phoenix Wildlife Center.
"It made me feel happy because its helping other people in need," said one student. "They can use it for good things to help people in hospitals or animals that need help."
