Ever wondered how recycled paper is made? Last week, Palisades High School students tore up pieces of paper (scrap and newspaper) and put them in a blender with hot water. Palisades Elementary students watched as the mushy mix was then placed on a small piece of window screen.
“It is sort of like mashed potatoes,” third grader Isabella Gourrier remarked when they were asked to flatten it. “It feels weird,” said classmate Avi Atkins. Some students pressed flower petals and leaves into the mush and then set it aside to dry. “This might be my Mother’s Day card,” Gourrier said.
Since 2003, the PaliHi AP environmental class has held an Earth Day event on the baseball field, inviting elementary school students to come learn more ways about helping the environment.
“My students are entirely responsible for coming up with the ideas, setting up the booths and supplying the materials,” said Pali teacher Steve Engelmann. “I ask students to come up with ideas that won’t depress the little kids, is age-appropriate and something even a third grader can do.”
The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970 in colleges, schools and communities across the U.S. It is now held in more than 192 countries around the world and draws attention to changes that individuals can make to help the environment.
Pali students set up 10 booths on April 30, each with a different theme. The booth labeled The Great Pacific Garbage Patch showed photos of the accumulation of plastic debris in the Pacific. After students were asked to think about how they could make a difference by not using plastic water bottles or plastic bags, they played blog tag. One Pali student, accessorized in plastic, tagged the younger students as they ran from one side of the field to the other. Once a child was tagged, he joined hands with the Pali student and, running as a unit, they tagged additional students to add to their “plastic bag garbage patch.”
At another booth, students spun dice to see if they could win a card that specified an action that would help the environment. Once they accumulated three cards they could remove a piece from a puzzle that depicted landfill, smog and trash to reveal a picture of a pristine environment.
“Growing radishes” was how senior Jack Wyman summed up a booth that had students up to their elbows in dirt as they planted seeds.
Yet another booth contained a game of chance. There were numerous brown paper bags, twisted shut and placed on a blanket. Elementary students were asked to select a bag and were told that one out of six bags had trash in it. (The Pali students had picked up the trash at the beach.) The winners, students who selected the bags with sand, were given a Starburst. The students who selected the bag with trash had to suggest a way to help the environment, and then received a piece of candy.
A face-painting booth had the choice of a monarch butterfly, a Galápagos penguin and a humpback whale. “We’re painting endangered and threatened animals,” said Pali’s Kiera Needham. “As we paint, it also gives us a chance to educate the kids about the plight of these animals.”
Yet another booth listed a variety of items, and students had to say what was recyclable and what was not. One youngster, Issac Aldeim, explained: “You can’t recycle this coffee cup because it’s waxy. You also can’t recycle Styrofoam.”
At the California wildflower booth, students learned about native plants used less water. When they gave the correct response, they received a sticker. Teachers later received packets of seeds to plant at the school.
PaliHi’s MacKenzie Gray, Elizabeth Seeley and Evelina Van Norden gave kids a brightly colored leaf and asked them to write one recycling tip. The individual leaves were then hung on a “tree.”
“We wanted kids to see that individual actions can make a big difference,” Seeley said.
The high school students shared some of the suggestions: not use plastic water bottles; take shorter showers; turn off lights when you leave a room; if you cut down a tree, plant a new one; ride a bike or scooter to school; and “recycle stuff to have God be happy.”
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