Going Green in the New Year!

    Happy 2016! We are so excited to begin the  New Year with exciting plans that help the environment.  The students are always having an on-going discussion about taking care of the earth and animals.  We have many passionate boys and girls who want to help in so many ways.  The class decided back in December to make a list of items they would like to see eliminated from snacks and lunches.  They made their decisions based on which snacks had recyclable packaging and which ones had packaging that went straight to the garbage.  They also looked at all of the wrappers we had collected from snacks and lunches in a week.  In only 5 days our classroom had thrown out 40 ziplock bags, 19 granola bar wrappers, and 12 cheese-string wrappers.  They were very surprised by how much garbage one classroom could produce in such a short time and wanted to do something to cut it down.  We also applied our math skills to this problem and calculated that in one month our classroom would throw out 160 ziploc bags and over the10 month school year 1600 ziploc bags would be sent to the landfill.  If we included other classrooms in our calculations, we estimated that students at Athlone School would use16,000 ziploc bags. Wow!  As a result, students voted on 3 items they would like to have on our no-no list.  This is their way of making a difference in their environment. The students are kindly requesting that cheese-strings, ziploc bags, and granola bars, be left at home, or at the grocery store.  If you need suggestions to replace any of these items, your child will probably have some great ideas.   We hope you can support and foster their love for helping the planet and we can all work together in 2016 to make our environment and our lunches a little greener.