Green students clean their campus
June 4, 2009
By Laura Geggel
As their classmates swing on the monkey bars and master the balance beam, a dedicated group of North Bend Elementary fourth-graders circle their local playground, picking up trash.
Every Monday and Thursday, the student-initiated Grooving Green Team dons yellow rubber gloves and scours its campus for garbage.
Trash “makes a beautiful place ugly,” fourth-grader Ana Cockerham said.
The team noticed there was always more trash around its playground on Mondays, especially if the preceding weekend had sunny weather. This only made them more determined to beautify the grounds, as if each candy wrapper collected were a prize they can’t wait to throw away.
Ana Cockerham holds a garbage bag next to Grooving Green Team members Connor Drake, Erin Walker, Sinclair Combs, Ana Duarte, Madison Walsh, Holly Gillespie and Sam Burrows
North Bend Elementary’s initial green push started during the summer of 2008, when a group of teachers, administrators, staff and parents decided to join the King County Green Schools Program.
When fourth-grade teacher Shari Myers had her students spearhead the waste-free Wednesday green school project this past year, they jumped onboard, creating posters and writing a skit that drew attention to the event.
King County also presented students with several garbology workshops. On Earth Day, Myers’ students picked up trash. It was then that the Grooving Green Team came into existence.
As part of the Earth Day festivities, fourth-grader Ana Duarte read an article in a Scholastic magazine about green projects. What, she wondered, could she and her classmates do to help North Bend Elementary?
She decided they should pick up litter. Duarte’s mother bought the group a supply of yellow gloves and made each member a nametag. Before long, the team of four had grown to eight.
Fourth-grader Madison Walsh said the group found all sorts of trash, including food wrappers, Styrofoam and cigarette butts.
“It keeps our school healthy,” Walsh said of picking up the litter.
“Once this teacher said,’ it’s better to have garbage in one place than all over the place,’” fourth-grader Connor Drake said.
Holly Gillespie joined the group to help the environment and to be with her friends. At the end of every recess, Gillespie hands her gloves to Myers, who washes them in disinfectant.
Students who want to flex more of a green muscle can join Myers’ book club. Every week, they read another three chapters of the ecological mystery, “The Missing ‘Gator of Gumbo Limbo.”
“I just really like going outdoors and doing stuff like that,” fourth-grader Sinclair Combs said.
Myers said she offers these opportunities because of the students’ interest.
“Hopefully, they’re going to take home the message that they’re a part of this world,” Myers said. “We’re all part of the problem, so that we’re all part of the solution.”
Reach reporter Laura Geggel at 392-6434 .221 or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.
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