Banana!

by Eliana

    About one month ago, one of the fourth grade classes performed a play called "Banana".  It was a story of three bananas growing on a tree, being picked, and being shipped thousands of miles to America, where they came to be in the lunch of three kids.  Unfortunately, the bananas end up in the trash!

    All that work for nothing!  No way.  The play goes back in time and shows you what you really should do if you have something you don't like in your lunch. 

Prospect Sierra fourth-grade students have been working extra hard to preserve our planet. On pizza day, when the whole school has pizza for lunch, we are encouraging the classrooms to use reusable plastic plates instead of paper plates, .

            The fourth grade classes are split up into four groups: Earth Day Planners, Recycling Ravens, Waste-Free Lunch, and Website.

            Earth Day Planners help prepare the school for Earth Day. They plan games and events for a very special day.

            Recycling Ravens are in charge of all the recycling at school. They make it clear what should or shouldn’t be recycled and what should be reused or thrown away.

            Waste-Free Lunch people encourage others to bring waste-free lunches to school – lunches that have nothing to be thrown out or even recycled. All containers should be reusable. They send home newsletters to the school families.

            Team Recycle people are responsible for this website and encourage the community through the website to recycle. They post articles on this site telling people what they can recycle, where they can recycle, and what will happen if we don’t recycle.

1. plastic bag
2. water bottle
3. paper

Plastic Bag Madness

by Isabelle

 

1. They’re washable!
2. They don’t break as easily!
3. They’re great beach-bags, swim-bags, grocery bags and a whole lot more!
4. They are very fun and you can decorate them and personalize them!
5. IT HELPS NOT POLLUTE THE PLANET!

     See why the world should not be a plastic bag mob? Yeah, I thought so.

     Still aren’t too enthusiastic? OK, read on!

     “I think that I’d like to start using cloth bags instead of plastic,” says one Prospect parent. “They’re good for the earth, don’t tear and feel better in my hands.”

     So now are you convinced??? GOOD! Because I think the world will be a better place if we all recycle. What do you think?

     Prospect Sierra 4^th graders are selling cloth bags that we designed for $20 each. I know it sounds a bit expensive, but we’re donating the profits to recycling centers. And they have a special drawing on them!

     I hope you enjoyed the article and that you get out there and RECYCLE!

Gross!  

    Prospect Sierra fourth graders took a field trip to the Contra Costa County landfill and recycling center. I think it was the stinkiest thing any of us had ever smelled, and it was pretty ugly, too.
    We noticed that when they dumped the day’s trash, huge flocks of seabirds came in to feast. I doubt any of them were very healthy, they were not only eating old, rotten food, they were eating plastic bags, old candy wrappers, and other inedible things. When you throw away something, you are not only hurting the land, you are hurting the wildlife.

By the way, have you ever thought about what we will do when there are no landfills left because there are no places where the land hasn’t been taken over by garbage? Have you? No. That’s what I thought. We’re doomed to a life full of trash—we’ll be trash world. Or, considering how many plastic bags we throw out, we’ll be plastic-bag world. Save your plastic bags, everybody, you can use them more than once! Save them in a cloth bag to use to go shopping later. Or, even better, use Tupperware instead—that will never end up in the trash.

            The recycling center smelled a bit better, but it was still pretty stinky. There were just about a million plastic milk cartons, aluminum soda cans, and a variety of other recycled objects. However, many of the things that are recycled can be used for other projects at home, like milk-carton birdhouses or building blocks. Also, judging by all the soda cans we saw, we are probably all super fat. Get fit, everybody!

Having said all that, do you think you will help save the world by recycling and reusing more? I hope so! Good luck with the recycling!

What would you do?   
by Jacob

It is 8:45  P.M. and it is drizzling. Chris has just finished a bottle (the bottle is glass) of apple cider. Now she finds the recycling is full. It would be unpleasant to get on her coat on, go out into  the rain, empty the recycling and come back. It would be so much easier to just dump it in the garbage.

     But, which is the better thing to do?