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Earth Day Celebration at TGS
5th graders clean up the Putney recycling center
In celebration of Earth Day, students, faculty, and staff at The Grammar School took part in a waste-free picnic lunch on April 22. Administrator Tara Meinhard, who has coordinated the movement towards a greener school, leads recycling and composting efforts on an ongoing basis. For the past two years the school has increased its efforts to reduce trash by participating in a large-scale paper and food composting program run by Triple T Trucking of Brattleboro. Meinhard and several students have sorted, weighed, and recorded the trash before it goes into the dumpster every day. She noted that though total waste has decreased, there are still many opportunities to reduce trash. Because of the Earth Day waste-free lunch, the entire school generated only three pounds of non-recyclable trash, one quarter the average daily amount.
Many of the classes also participated in their own Earth Day activities. Preschoolers picked up around campus, kindergartners researched how shade-grown coffee and cocoa beans protect the rainforest, and first graders made collages from food packaging. Second graders watched a demonstration and discussed the shortage of clean water around the world and proposed ways that they could conserve water at home, third graders examined conservation, and in recognition of Earth Day’s 40th anniversary, fourth graders brainstormed 40 ways to tread more lightly on the planet. The fifth graders took a bus trip to the center of town and cleaned up at the Putney recycling center, while the sixth graders calculated the average amounts of trash they generated. Everyone agreed that we all could be more conscious and observant of the waste we produce in our daily lives; as a start, a waste-free lunch will be a regular event at The Grammar School.
As they look forward to Vermont’s 40th Green Up Day on May 1, students at TGS will pick up trash along town roads near the school and take another trip to spruce up the Putney recycling center.