New Hope Elementary gave the earth a variety of gifts for its special day.
The school celebrated Earth Day Thursday with a campuswide trash pickup, separating recyclables from trash and handing out trees.
Carol Davidson instructor of the MERIT — Managing the Educational Resources of the Intellectually Talented — program at New Hope Elementary, has been prepping her students for Earth Day with a week”s worth of activities including working with special needs students at New Hope to clean the school, using paper towel art in school bathrooms to remind students to use fewer towels and planting flowers with manure — donated via one student”s grandmother”s horses.
The MERIT kids also learned all about recycling, which coincided with New Hope”s Parent-Teacher Organization donating $2,000 worth of recycling bins and cans to put a bin in every classroom and common area.
Then they spread the word.
“We searched up and printed sheets that we put around the school with what”s recyclable and what”s not,” said fifth-grader Britney Casmus, 10, of Steens, who was surprised to find out styrofoam was not recyclable.
The multi-tiered Earth Day effort has New Hope students considering the benefits of being eco-friendly.
“If we”re not, then trees and things that we breathe with will die and we”d die, or just live in a big dump,” said Desmyn Scaff, 10, a fifth-grader.
Students and the PTO also presented each teacher at New Hope with one of 250 trees donated by Weyerhaeuser for Earth Day and Teacher Appreciation Day.
The PTO went above and beyond the Earth Day call Thursday, sifting through trash by hand to separate recyclable items.
“Typically, we would have 16 bags of trash,” said PTO member Dawn Whittington. “Our goal was to have zero waste, but we had 25 percent waste, which is much better than 100-percent waste.”
Thursday was a busy day at New Hope Elementary. Before kids went outside to pick up litter, an award ceremony was held to recognize the winners of a poster contest advocating active lifestyles.
Lowndes County District 3 Supervisor John Holliman, whose district contains New Hope, was on hand to pass out certificates to the winners. The contest was a part of County Government Month activities.
“Any time I get to interact with kids and they participate in government it”s always a joy,” said Holliman.
Fifth-grader Sarah Caldwell, third-grader Reagan Hall and kindergartner Anastasia Winters took the top spots.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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