Schools
Roosevelt Students Know What it Means to Go Green
Children on the school's recycling team decorated about 500 bags for Western Market shoppers, depicting earth-friendly concepts for Earth Day.
Linda Somers' third-graders at have a grasp on Earth Day.
"We recycle paper, plastic, cans, cardboard boxes and batteries so they don't go into the landfill," said Zelda Lambrix, one of the third-graders. Just as Zelda finishes her sentence, the other students chime in, talking over each other. One thought is barely finished as another is made.
"We don't want the landfills to fill up," Kali Ryan said. "…so we have nice parks to play in," Madeleine Leblanc added. "…and we can save the Earth," Natalie Nelson said.
"Landfills take up the Earth and can leak fumes and chemicals," Zelda added. "…burning is bad for the air…" Natalie chimed in. "… sometimes the chemicals in the landfills escape and go into the drinking water," Kali said.
Somers' third-graders are the Ferndale school's recycling team. "They learn about recycling and the environment all year," she said.
As part of their duties, every week they go to the classrooms and collect from the recycling bins. "They are absolutely conscious of the environment," Somers said.
Wednesday, Roosevelt school, as well as Somers' class, gave about 500 paper grocery bags to that the students had decorated with earth-friendly slogans and pictures recognizing Earth Day.
"This grocery bag project brings awareness to Earth Day and the environment," Anne Kelly, a social worker at the school and parent at the school. "The bags were decorated with messages of recycling, reusing, saving the earth. Some of them drew a picture of trash with a line through it. It was pretty cute."
Western Market will take the bags and give them to customers who request them for their groceries during checkout. "We put the bags on the walls in the store to show them off and if a customer asks we'll pack their orders in the bag," Western Market owner Steve Selvaggio said.
Roosevelt is a Michigan Green School with Emerald status. There are 20 points in the green schools program. Each point is engaging the school in various environmental activities. To be a green school, the school must partake in 10 of these 20 points. Emerald status requires the school to get 15 points. The next step up is Evergreen by receiving all 20 points.
The activities associated with the green schools program seem to stick with the kids, Kelly said.
"It absolutely hits home with them," she said. "It's important for them at this age. It's important to expose them to what they can do to make the earth cleaner. Start them young."
Back to Somers' third-grade class, they are still rattling off the different ways to keep the earth clean.
"You know you can recycling books?" Natalie said. "…with hard covers," Kali adds.
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