Outstanding in their Field: Greenfield Elementary’s Earth Week

Ms MacLellan’s grade three class at Greenfield Elementary enthusiastically took action for Earth Week! When I visited their class recently, these students had all kinds of great ideas for how they wanted to celebrate during the week leading up to Earth Day, celebrated worldwide annually on April 22.

Monday: Recess time litter collection 
The students agreed to do their part to make sure any floating bits of trash end up in the bin at recess. Ms MacLellan made sure participants could have bags and gloves for the cleanup.

Tuesday: Surprise Earth Day craft!
Ms MacLellan had a surprise Earth Day craft planned for Tuesday. You can see the gorgeous results on display in the last photograph here. Wonderful Earth handprints, grade threes!

Wednesday: Litterless lunch.
The grade threes noticed that most of the waste in their garbage can at the end of the day is plastic packaging from students’ snacks foods. They came up with a list of snacks that can be packed in reusable containers: apple slices, oranges, strawberries, carrot sticks, cucumbers, blueberries. And, oh my! It turns out those snacks are healthier options too! We talked about how students can be a big help to the grocery shoppers in their family by helping to choose these litterless snacks next time they are at the grocery store.

Thursday: BBC’s Planet Earth video
As part of my Earth Day presentation at Greenfield Elementary, we watched a clip from Blue Planet II. This is one of many nature documentaries made by the BBC, including the infamous Planet Earth series that shows us the Earth like we’ve never seen it before. The students were fascinated and Ms MacLellan agreed to show them a full episode of Planet Earth on Thursday. It’s like a field trip from your seat!

Friday: Lights out & power down 
The grade three classroom is big and bright, and they already do a great job of turning off the lights when it’s sunny. Other times they just use half the lights if they need a bit of extra illumination. On Friday, they planned to be extra conscious to keep the lights off, and keep their electricity use to a minimum.

After my visit, Ms MacLellan sent a photo of one student’s t-shirt that he wanted to show me. It says ‘Unplugged in the wild,’ and his dad designed it! That sounds like a great way to spend Earth Day! Does it come in my size?

Happy Earth Week! Let us know how you plan to celebrate.

Shandel Brown
~Engagement Officer, Cape Breton