Parties, Praise, and Plastic Bottles

Originally appears in the Fall 2011 issue

Have you ever noticed the positive impact young people can have on the world around them when given the opportunity? I have often witnessed adults doing the ‘right thing’ after a child has said to them, “Remember to recycle that can,” or “We need to start using reusable bottles instead of disposable plastic ones.” We seem to listen to young people because we know that it’s our responsibility to model a good example. Throughout my years of teaching elementary school and facilitating our school’s student-led Green Team, I have developed a variety of activities to teach students how to make environmentally-smart choices and celebrate all of the things they do to make the world a greener place. Reusable party boxes, setting a world record, and green recognition bulletin boards are three such ways to get students aged 9-12 involved with environmental stewardship.

Reusable Party Boxes

A reusable party box is one idea that will help students learn the importance of reusing. Most classrooms have several parties throughout the school year during which paper and plastic products are used because they’re easy to manage and clean-up. These products might be easy, but they are far from green! A reusable party box has everything you need in it to have a “green party.”

Each box has a set of washable, reusable, and durable plastic plates, bowls, cups, and utensils for a class. A store like IKEA is a great, affordable place to buy these items. Ask families to donate cloth napkins they no longer need. You can also ask for old cloth towels or washcloths for cleaning up after parties. Store your items in a Rubbermaid-type box that will fit conveniently on a shelf, in a drawer, or on top of a cabinet in your classroom.

There are many ways to deal with dirty items, but I have found that asking for parent volunteers at the beginning of the school year who are willing to wash items with their own dishes and clothes at home works best. When party boxes were first introduced at my school, some parents were concerned about the impact washing items would have on the environment. Was using a party box actually greener if we still had to use hot water and soap to wash the dirty items? One solution is to split items between a few families so that families are easily able to wash things with their regular loads, reducing the amount of water used and soap put into the environment. Once items are returned, they are ready to be used at your next classroom party. Your box is also perfect for staff meetings or other functions on campus.

As with many things in teaching, you are probably wondering where to get the money for one of these boxes. The cost per box is approximately $60 (US), depending on where you purchase your items. Fundraising can be a quick and easy way to earn the money you need to purchase a box for your class, or possibly your entire school. At our school, we used money earned from our school-wide cell phone and printer cartridge recycling program to pay for the box, but you could also host a bake sale, ask for local businesses to “Sponsor a Reusable Box,” or apply for grant money that may be offered through your local government (many cities offer money to schools for that are doing things to help the environment).

Guinness World Records

For some schools, coming up with the next “green” activity might be a challenge. The school at which I teach is already making a lot of environmentally-smart choices. We have an efficient recycling and compost program, and our teachers have been well educated in conservation. When this is the case, you have to start to think bigger, like hosting an environmental world record attempt. In the spring of 2008, our school, Discovery Elementary in Sammamish, Washington set the record for the most plastic drinking bottles collected in an 8-hour period, receiving recognition from the Guinness Book of World Records. In the parking lot of our school, we collected and recycled 657 pounds of plastic, breaking the previous record of 88 pounds set by a McDonald’s restaurant a few years earlier. Not only was this a way to excite and educate young people about the impact humans have on their environment, it was an event that involved our entire community. In fact, many families switched from using disposable bottles to reusable bottles as a result of the waste they witnessed during the event.

Setting a Guinness World Record can seem like a lot of work, but there are many practical things you can do to make it more manageable. First, choose an already established environmental record such as these from the Guinness World Record website  “most drink cans collected (8 hours),” “most people collecting litter [at one time],” or “most plastic bags recycled in 8 hours.” (See www.guinnessworldrecords.com for more environmental records.) While my students did not have the opportunity to consider alternative records, other environmentally focused records could include: ‘most trees planted at one time;’ ‘most people restoring a river/forest/beach at one time;’ ‘most people walking/riding a bike to work/school in one day;’ ‘most people generating electricity in 24 hours;’ ‘most people planting flower bulbs simultaneously;’ or ‘largest collection of clothes to recycle.’ If none of these seem interesting to your students, write your own record. Contact Guinness to receive the exact guidelines for your particular record attempt. In cases of established records, Guinness will already have a set of directions for you. In the case of a new record, they may suggest a record similar to an existing one, or provide a new set of guidelines for you to follow (and that can be used for subsequent attempts).

You will quickly learn that all records need “officials” to verify that what you claim happened actually took place. Guinness will suggest paying thousands of dollars to use one of their judges, money that most schools don’t have. This is an opportunity to reach out to your community as an alternative source of judges. We contacted prominent members of our city, as well as surrounding cities. Our official judges consisted of our mayor, city council members, members of our Kiwanis organization, and influential business owners. Although they were unable to help, we also contacted our local fire and police departments. The length of your event will determine how many officials you will need. For our 8-hour event, we asked judges to stay for one or two hour shifts.

Once you have recruited your judges, you can start promoting your event in local newspapers or television stations. We discovered that our local NBC affiliate was willing to give us a 30-second public service announcement if we provided a live audience for a local afternoon show. Don’t be afraid to ask for coverage, as many local news sources are looking for human interest stories involving young people. We even contacted Today and the Ellen DeGeneres Show—again, it never hurts to ask.

As your event approaches, you will want to establish a schedule so that students, parent volunteers and judges know exactly when to arrive and what to expect. Since the judges and other adults are giving their time to your event free of charge, you may want to provide light snacks and beverages. Our local coffee shop was happy to donate food and drinks. Once the event starts, document everything. Log sheets, pictures, video of the activities, and signed statements from the officials are exactly the type of evidence Guinness will need to validate your record. At the end, just follow the guidelines for submitting your documentation and wait for your official certificate to arrive!

(Note: – To begin the process of breaking a Guinness World Record, or establishing an entirely new record, visit www.guinnessworldrecords.com and click on “Set a Record”.)

Praise & Recognition

Once you have introduced students to making environmentally smart choices, you’ll find them extending those ideas in and outside of your school community. It is time to recognize students for their initiative. Establishing a “Caught Being Green Bulletin Board” or celebrating “Earth Idols” are two ways in which you can do this.

The idea of “Caught Being Green” is that any member of the school community—students, teachers, parents, or other adults—can give and receive recognition for the little (or big) things they are doing everyday to help the environment around your school. Most of the walls of our main office are glass, so we used dry erase markers to write on the glass the names of honored individuals and short descriptions of their green deeds. Writing on the glass allowed us to save paper and make use of an underutilized space. Seeing classmates’ names on the walls motivated students to make smarter environmental choices because they wanted to see their name and deed on the window. During the course of a month, we celebrated individual students, parents, teachers, and entire classrooms for everything from picking up litter to creating reusable scrap paper boxes.

This concept can take many different forms, depending on your school. For example, the following year we focused on making a stronger school-to-home connection. That year, we used a large portion of the wall in our front hallway. Each month, we presented green tasks to our school community, asking families to take pictures of the tasks or write/draw about them. Some of these tasks included switching to energy-efficient light bulbs, visiting a waste center, interviewing a vendor at a farmers market, making posters for upcoming environmental events, and turning down thermostats and hot water heaters to conserve energy. We then posted artifacts on the bulletin board as a way to share accomplishments with the entire school community. In addition to seeing all of the wonderful things families were doing to help the environment, we saw many adults and students gleaning ideas from the bulletin board. The bulletin board helped to celebrate student choices as well as encourage fellow students and families to do something good for the environment.

“Earth Idol” is a third variation of a green-themed community bulletin board. Following the reality television model, this project involves nominating and choosing staff members, students, parents, and/or entire classrooms that were going above and beyond when it came to being “green” at school. Winners were recognized on a bulletin board in the main hallway of our school and given individual certificates. They were then highlighted as model “greenies” in our school community. This was a highly motivating activity that involved our entire school.

We posted kid-friendly nomination forms in our front hallway and made announcements over our PA system to encourage community members to nominate those they saw making environmentally-smart choices in one of three categories: Student, Teacher, and Classroom. We chose one winner from each category every month. Through Earth Idol, we were able to recognize a wider range of people as well as give students a voice in choosing what they thought were valuable green deeds. A way to extend the concept of Earth Idol might be to call together the year’s winners and have the students vote for an ultimate Earth Idol.

These are just a few ways to involve and motivate young people to be stewards of the Earth. Whether it is a single classroom activity or something that involves the entire community, the more young people are empowered, the more we all become aware of the importance of preserving our environment through our actions.

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Tasha Kirby taught at Discovery Elementary in Sammamish, Washington for eight years before moving to Bozeman, Montana where she now teaches at Emily Dickinson Elementary.