FEB hands on with Earth Day
Pre-K through fourth grade students at Burleson Elementary School participated in a variety of environmentally friendly activities to celebrate Earth Day on Tuesday.
Learning stations were set up in the outdoor classroom, gymnasium and several classrooms, with students rotating from one station to the next throughout the day.
A Recycling Relay Game in the gym challenged students to identify recyclables in a pile of trash and relay them to recycling bins.
“It’s amazing how quickly the students can separate items that can be recycled from garbage and trash,” said Lisa Halbrooks, P.E. teacher. “We emphasize that everybody is a winner when we recycle, and we send a list of the items that can be recycled home with them.”
At another station, students converted large pinecones into bird feeders and at another, they brought plastic grocery bags from home for “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”
The bags were linked together and used at the end of the day to demonstrate the potential negative impact they can have on the environment if not recycled. The student also viewed a video that demonstrated how recyclable items thrown into streams could endanger aquatic life.
Students also brought jar lids to school and painted them red for use as decorations for an Earth Day tree. The tree will be shaped from hog fence wire and decorated with recyclables.
Parent volunteers Shane Dumas, Russell Roberts, Jaylan Milligan, Michael Hembree and custodian Kevin Crawley installed a rain barrel in the outdoor classroom as a permanent fixture.
Matt and Kyla Pilkington, owners of Stone Hedge Nursery provided a petunia plant for each student and enough strawberry plants for the students to make a strawberry basket for each teacher.