GREEN DEEDS Week 2

We are working on recycling this week with my first grade friends.  Today was a good day for problem solving.  I brought in my Mary Kay order that arrived yesterday.  It was beautifully presented, but sat nestled in formed plastic in a beautiful box surrounded by a plastic sack along with two other plastic sacks containing little rewards for my purchase.  These plastic bags were packed in Styrofoam in another exterior box. 

At first the kids were not sure about what was wrong.  Then we watched a very informative video about plastic in the oceans.   I did not tell them why I was upset, but after seeing the impact of plastic in the ocean they could figure out why I was distressed by my order.  When they got it...they really got it.  "How can I do something about this?"    After several suggestions one of the students settled on talking to the person who owns the company.  We also talked about how people need to learn about these things and how we can all be teachers to help others learn what we know.  Then we talked about how our community needs to have plastic recycle containers next to the trash cans, so that when we pick up plastic waste that is thrown on the ground we can put it in the right place.  Some of us are going to write our Mayor.  I especially liked what one of the children said about a person who picked up and disposed of trash, helped others learn about recycling or wrote letters to people.  Without any prompting, the student said, "He is a good citizen."  Today there were 21 good citizens thinking of ways to help the earth in the library!