Along with their black and gold school colors, New Hope Elementary students in grades K-five are adding another color to the scheme — green.
Carol Davidson, who teaches the MERIT — managing the educational resources of the intellectually talented — class program at New Hope Elementary, has worked, along with Jennifer Caldwell, who also teaches in the program, to help New Hope Elementary go green.
“During the summer, Mrs. Caldwell and I attended a Project Citizen workshop at Mississippi State University where we spent several weeks learning a lot of valuable information to pass along to the students,” Davidson said, noting Project Citizen emphasizes teaching students about citizenship and becoming more aware of the needs that surround them.
“We worked with them to help them learn what they can do to contribute to their community. The students took walks around the campus to see what needed to be improved,” she said.
The students made a list and decided on recycling, researching the price of trash receptacles and what it would take to get some for the school.
“This really excited the students, so we began taking the steps to promote the fact we are going green,” she said.
Davidson contacted Karen Stanley with Triangle Maintenance Service to get a BluBox recycling bin, which has been placed in an area across from the school.
BluBox is a division of Triangle Maintenance and accepts recyclables for processing.
“Our students also performed skits for the rest of the elementary school promoting the importance of recycling, and it has gotten everyone excited about going green,” Davidson said.
Another way Davidson said the students are going to promote going green is to put together a display board with research information about the school”s recycling program.
“This will show their research, how they solve the problem, and coming up with alternatives,” she said.
The board be on display at the state Capitol in Jackson in the spring.
Stanley, who is director of sales and marketing for Triangle Maintenance, said her role with New Hope Elementary has been to advise the teachers and students about being environmentally conscious.
“The students are learning what they can and what they cannot put into the bins. They can dispose of magazines, construction paper, all plastics including plastic water bottles, cardboard, copy paper and coloring sheets as well as aluminum cans,” she said.
Items that are not allowed to go in the recyclable bins are juice boxes or pouches, chips or snack bags, Styrofoam products, candy wrappers, paper towels or tissues or food of any kind.
Davidson said she hopes the middle school as well as the high school will get on board and go green.
She also wants to make sure the school can have a BluBox collection bin on campus rather than having to take their recyclable items to the bin across the street.
“We are hoping to find some business to serve as a sponsor for us to buy one,” she said.
All in all, Davidson said, the students are excited about going green.
“Throughout the week, I have had students come up to me to tell me how many times they have emptied their bins. They are very motivated to help make this a cleaner place,” she said.
Allen Baswell was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 35 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
