
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 3, 1993                   TAG: 9305030238
SECTION: NEWSFUN                    PAGE: NF1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: WENDI GIBSON RICHERT STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

YOU HAVE EARTH-SHAKING POWER

Ask kids what they think the worst environmental problem on Earth is and you'll hear answers as varied as kids themselves. And that's not surprising, once you think about it. Kids not only learn about the environment in school, they grow up seeing just how dirty our Earth has become.

South Salem Elementary School's Bryan Cotton insists water pollution is the Earth's worst offender. "I think it hurts the Earth because of people causing oil spills, dumping trash, putting tires in the water, killing whales, and toxic waste. I would like to see people stop just dumping trash."

Bryan's not alone. We all would like to see the Earth looking better than it does today, whether it be the oceans, the air or littered roadsides.

The Earth's not completely wasted, though, because some folks are working to make it a better - greener - place to live, and not all these folks are grown-ups.

Kids are helping, too. Whether in classrooms around the world or at home with their families, they're recycling and picking up trash.

Some, like Burlington Elementary School sixth-grader Rett Smith, are riding bikes and walking - instead of riding in a car. And some are collecting pennies to adopt endangered animals or bits of vanishing rain forest land.

All told, kids not only are helping to save the world, they're making a difference.

For the fourth year, Mountain View Elementary School in Roanoke is collecting old telephone directories for recycling. As of last year, they had collected about 35,000 books. They had so many that they could spell their school's name in giant letters in the school's front yard. (That's also enough books to build a tower almost 1,155 yards tall.)

In years past, Mountain View has combined the phone directory recycling project with an Arbor Day program, in which almost 2,000 pine trees were planted.

Second-graders at Lee M. Waid Primary School in Rocky Mount are having a fun time helping to save the Earth. Not only are they recycling trash, but they also are turning it into art.

Teacher Carmella Stevenson says the recycled art projects have included a variety of things usually thrown away. There are lots of pigs made from bleach containers, some monsters and crazy-looking creatures, and even a castle, all on display at the school.

Also in Franklin County, Tika Trotter's fourth-grade class at Sontag School collected pennies to buy a spot of the rain forest in Costa Rica. "That is one spot of rain forest that will not be cut down," writes Tika. "We have a deed in our classroom saying we own 100 square feet of rain forest land."

At Margaret Beeks Elementary School in Blacksburg, the fifth-grade classes of Carol Jortner and Jean Alfano learned how packaging and advertising affect our planet. These pupils visited a grocery store and purchased items that were packaged with too much cardboard, plastic, paper and other materials. When they got back to their classrooms, the pupils wrote letters to the companies that made the products and asked them why they used so much packaging.

"This was not only a fun project," the teachers said, "but one which taught pupils and teachers a great deal. We saw, first-hand, the waste in packaging."

The Crystal Spring Elementary School Ecology Club in Roanoke came up with a fun and easy way to keep the local landfill from filling up too soon. The club developed a Recycled Toy Exchange Fair where pupils brought old toys to school and exchanged them for a classmate's old toy.

Earlier this year, the school's pupils raised $139.07 in pennies for the Nature Conservancy's Adopt an Acre Program, which saves a tract of land from being destroyed. They also adopted a whale named Crystal from the Adopt A Whale Program, which saves whales from being slaughtered for blubber.

Meg Cliborne's class at Burlington Elementary School also adopted a whale. Class members said they did other things to help the environment, too, such as making bird feeders out of milk cartons, recycling paper, plastic and cans, and using recycled paper to draw on.

There are many other ways you can participate in helping our environment become healthy once again. Visit your local library and check out a few books on the subject. Most importantly, realize you have a certain power that could change Earth for a lot of grown-ups too afraid to do it themselves.

John Javna writes in the beginning of the EarthWorks Group book, "50 Simple Things Kids Can Do To Save The Earth," "Kids have a lot of power. Whenever you say something, grown-ups have to listen. Whenever you care about something, grown-ups have to care, too. Whenever you do something, grown-ups have to pay attention. They don't always tell you this, but it's true. So if saving the Earth is important to you, then grown-ups will have to follow along."

by CNB