Published: April 30, 2008 10:28 am            

Parkwood students getting keen on being green

Students play Enviro-Jeopardy with environmental official

Five fifth-graders at Parkwood Elementary School leaned in over the table, whispering what they thought was the correct question in a game of Enviro-Jeopardy.

The answer was: These items have to go to a landfill, meaning they can’t be reused, recycled or composted.

One student said he thought it was A, plastic bottles.

“No, you can recycle that,” 11-year-old Isaiah Mack reasoned out loud.

“It’s B, disposable diapers, because it can’t be reused or recycled,” Johnathon Frazier, 11, told the group.

Frazier wrote their pick down on a dry-erase board and held it above his head. The host of the game, Scott Anslinger, announced that the group was correct.

Anslinger, a pollution-prevention specialist from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, came to the school Tuesday to host the game to teach kids how to be green.

“These guys will be the driving force in their families to get them doing the right things and then when they get older they will keep those Earth-friendly habits,” Anslinger said.

Students have already come up with ideas to help the environment.

“I don’t want our city to look bad to people who come and visit,” Mack said, referring to fast-food trash that he sees along the streets. “Maybe I could start a no-litter program and go around and pick up trash.”

“I’m going to recycle more, because I want my kids to see the polar bears,” 11-year-old Bryn Vermillion said, referring to the polar ice caps melting because of global warning. “I think I can make a difference, because every little bit counts.”

This year, the school’s student council started a paper recycling program. Teacher Kristen Blackburn said that has raised awareness on the issue.

“This is an issue that’s going to effect them more than anyone else,” she said. “I think they are really learning something.”

        

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