Great American Teach In

Today I spent an hour at my son’s school with about 40 first graders talking about trash!  The Great American Teach In is a time for parents and community members to come into the schools and show the kids what we do for a living.  I love talking to the kids but I was a bit intimidated when I drove up…there was a garbage truck, a helicopter, and a police car in the parking lot!  And here I come with my reusable shopping bag full of goodies.  I was afraid they wouldn’t be interested but they loved it.

I decided that this year I would talk about the 3R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!  The media tends to push recycling but they don’t mention the other 2 R’s.  I started by asking kids if they knew where their trash goes to…that big hole in the ground we call a landfill…and told them that hundreds of years from now their trash will still be there!  Then I talked about the Mobius Strip (the recycling symbol) and what it means.  Did you know that it was created in 1970 by a 23 year old college student; Gary Anderson? 

I showed the kids some simple ways to reduce and reuse their waste.

-Reusable bags
-Reusable water bottles
-Using both sides of the paper
-Using trash for craft projects

I even prepared a small craft project for the kids.  I took some of our cardboard boxes from the recycling bin (cereal, pop tarts, mac-n-cheese, etc) and cut them to the size of a bookmark.  Each kid got to draw and color a picture on the backside and I finished them off by adding a ribbon to the top.  It was so cute to see the kids all excited about playing with trash! 

I can’t wait for next year to visit again; I wonder what I’ll talk about then?