News & Events >> Parent Earth Team Meeting
Parent Earth Team Meeting
Date: 05/25/2010
Time: 8:45 AM
Parent's Earth Team
Edible garden: See the news item to learn more about this amazing project lead by members of the Parent Earth Team.
Did you know there are ways to save money while supporting local agriculture by purchasing locally? Buying locally keeps dollars in the local economy, strengthening local economies and creates jobs.
The Earth Team would like to thank Averill Apple Orchard in Washington for their generous donation of over-wintered apples and Marble Valley Farm in Kent for their generous donation of organic carrots and greens. These items plus lemons and greens (from our own WMS greenhouse) were used to create Green Lemonade on Earth Day. If you have a juicer you can make your own healthy drink by juicing:
2 lemons, 2 apples, a bunch of kale or other dark leafy green and a handful of carrots. All organic, of course!
Earth Day was Thursday April 22nd this year and there were activities all week for the entire school community.
EARTH WEEK SCHEDULE
Monday: Green Resource table, Earth Team sign up sheet and Earth Week art will be set up all week. Pack zero-waste lunch for children today. Commit to making a "green" change in your life this week.
Tuesday: “Carry Your Trash Day”...all elementary and middle school classes are encouraged to participate in this fun activity where they carry all of their waste with them throughout the day...documenting and discussing their findings at days end to learn more about their own impact on the environment.
Wednesday: Carpool with someone today! Save electricity by turning off any unnecessary lights or appliances. Only buy organic and/or local this week.
Thursday: Earth Day. We'll start the day off right by serving "green" lemonade from 8:15-8:45am in the front hall. Try this delicious fresh juicing concoction which consists of greens from our own WMS greenhouse, apples donated by Averill Farm, lemons donated by a California family and carrots donated by the Earth Team. School-wide campus litter clean up happens today as well as the annual Earth Day ceremony.
Friday: Carpool with someone! Pack a zero-waste lunch. Plant a tree this weekend.
WMS NEW VEGETABLE GARDEN NEWS: The Parent's Earth Team is at work building an organic edible garden for WMS on the south side of the GYm next to the greenhouse. With a grant of $1000 from Litchfield Hills Food Systems and generous donations from a few WMS families, we will be installing the first eight beds in early May. John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds in Bantam is donating seeds. We hope to have students involved in every aspect of building the garden including ideas on how it will evolve. Different classrooms will be starting seeds in the greenhouse and some of these seedlings will be going to Judea Garden in Washington Depot. We will need volunteers to help maintain the school garden over the summer. Learn more at our resource table set up all week in the lobby.Did you know? The air we breathe is getting cleaner, the US is gaining forests and wetlands and soil erosion is declining. For more facts see: www.nationalcenter.org/EarthDay09Progress.html
The Earth Team is open to all parents and staff at WMS. Please feel free to join a meeting when you can.
One Thing You Can Do to Help Oceans: Use Reusable Plastic
National Geographic recently reported the discovery of the “Atlantic Garbage Patch.” It covers 1,000 miles off the East Coast of the United States. Much of the debris is tiny bits of discarded plastic and trash; most of it weighs less than a paperclip and floats near the surface. Imagine what it must be like for a baby loggerhead sea turtle making his way out to the Atlantic and having to come up for air in that plastic soup.
Are you depressed yet? I’m not. Sad, yes. Depressed, no.
For one thing, depression rarely motivates people to actually do something about the problem that’s depressing them. They watch TV instead.
For another, I don’t think we have to live like this. Sometimes when a problem seems so, well, global, we think there’s nothing we can do.
But this is actually a problem where every individual’s actions matter. So, good news: If you use plastic, you have the power to change the world in one easy step.
Step 1: Stop using so much plastic. Go with reusable shopping bags and drinking bottles, instead.
It’s a simple matter of volume:
• Consider all of the people in your neighborhood and school who shop.
• Now consider what would happen if everyone committed to using reusable bags and drinking bottles.
• Now think of everyone in your town, your city, your state, your country, your continent, your world — all of them doing what you’re doing….That is a tremendous amount of disposable plastic that never has the opportunity to escape and wreak havoc on marine life.
All because people made a simple change to their daily lives. Our choices matter. Each of us has more power to affect our world — for good and for bad — than we knowEarth Team's recycle week was a great success. We collected many items, including batteries, old cell phones, blue jeans and sneakers.
Did you know Recycling old sneakers through a recycling program saves them from ending up in a landfill and allows them to be repurposed for use in creating playgrounds, basketball and tennis courts, and running tracks?
The Earth Team would like to encourage families to carpool whenever possible. By creating a carpool community families save on car maintenance and gas while helping reducing their carbon footprint. A Litchfield chartered bus is in the works and if you are interested in starting one in another area please come to our next meeting or send us an email. www.dividetheride.com is a great on-line resource as well.
