RecyclaRuss on display at Town Hall

Green Team pleased with their work

Meet Recycla-Russ . . . The Green Teams Winning Entry into the Annual Arlington EcoFest!

Congratulations to members of the Green Team who worked hard to transform lunchroom leftovers— cleaned recyclables—and build a rhinoceros.  Why a rhinoceros? Because the weight of a mature African rhinoceros is equivalent to the weight that our recycling and composting efforts will have saved over the course of a school year from being trucked to the incinerator:  6 tons or 12,000 pounds!!!


The Green Team members, who named their rhino "Recycla-Russ" , were one of five winners at Arlington's Annual EcoFest on Saturday, March 23rd, at Arlington Town Hall.  The Green Team was awarded a gift certificate from the Book Rack along with a certificate for their participation. They plan to make a donation to the school library.

Transporting RecyclaRuss

You never know when RecyclaRuss might appear again!

After School Club meets

We had a great first meeting of the Green Team after school club on Tuesday.  17 students total attended from the 1st, 3rd and 4th grades. Parent helpers today were Rachel, Caitlin, Kim, and Erika. Here's a short summary of our activities:

1. We started seated in a circle and shared our names, grade, a favorite place to be, and the animal/element card we had drawn for the "web of life" game.
2. We then had fun playing the game which involved tossing a giant skein of yarn and making links between plants and animals until we had made a great big web and could feel the interconnectedness.
3. Next we talked about the great work the students are doing for lunchroom waste reduction program and figured out that in one school year we will have diverted 9,000 pounds of food "waste" that would have otherwise gone to the incinerator. (It turns out that's the weight of a mature African rhinoceros!) School Superintendent Dr. Bodie's next newsletter will feature an article on this written by a volunteer who visited the school to see the operation this morning.
4. We then turned our attention to possible future projects for the Green Team. To gauge student's interest we had 6 different suggestions on the bulletin board. After introducing the ideas each student was given 6 stickers to place on whichever project was most interesting. Projects #3 Landscapes for Learning, and #4 Design a T-shirt were the tied leaders followed closely by project #2 - recycled art project for community art show.
5. The next activity was viewing a short video clip from a film about a children's orchestra in Paraguay that uses instruments made from reclaimed materials. Here is a link: 
6. And lastly we did our own little craft making a small coin purse out of recycled juice pouches from the lunchroom.

We were glad to see all those who could make it and look forward to seeing others of you next time. Everyone was enthusiastic about getting together again. 

Green Team first club meeting