Prairie View coloring “green” for Earth Day
April 25, 2010
Wentzville School District
Prairie View Elementary students observed Earth Day with a variety of “earth-centric” activities this year.
Outside, students planted flowers and spread mulch, and picked up trash from around the school. Inside, they learned about conserving natural resources, as well as the three R’s…reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Theresa McCulloch’s first grade students got involved by coloring paper grocery bags. The school has teamed up with a local grocery store chain, and the finished brown bag “works of art” will go back into the store, to help encourage customers to use paper bags instead of plastic. The store provided hundreds of paper shopping bags so every student at Prairie View could have one to decorate.
“Paper or plastic” is a question we don’t hear as much as we used to, and students learned that plastic bags now account for four out of every five bags handed out at the grocery store. Americans throw away almost 100 billion plastic bags annually, and it takes hundreds of years for plastic bags to break down.
Brianna, one of the artistic first graders who had just completed her bag, said “We need to keep our air clean so we can breathe, and we shouldn’t litter because animals could get stuck in the plastic and die!” The eco-friendly students at Prairie View Elementary are doing their part to encourage people to reuse and recycle.
“All of the students are very enthusiastic, and they really enjoy learning new terms and ideas that can help them help the earth,” said McCulloch.
From the Wentzville School District.
Copyright 2010 Neighbors About Town
