Schools
Franklin Avenue Students Make Earth Day Fun
Franklin Avenue Elementary School held events and assemblies in honor of Earth Day Wed and Fri.
This week, Franklin Avenue Elementary School focused on conservation, composting, and recycling as part of their Earth Day curriculum.
Throughout the school there are posters explaining different ways to conserve and why recycling is important.
Jean Beckerle, a volunteer parent, organized many of the activies and assemblies for Earth Day. She believes it is important to educate children about the environment.
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Beckerle and the other volunteers made sure to show that environmental science can be extraordinarily fun. On Friday, students played a variety of games discussing different topics. Examples of the games played are:
- Coyote Tag - Teaches about conservation and survival in the wild
- Web of Life - Teaches about different types of insects and their roles and importance
- Garbage Pizza - Teaches how to categorize trash, what can be recycled, and what should be avoided
- Environmental Jeopardy - Triva questions about ecology
"The children were very knowledgable. I was surprised at how much they already knew," said Franklin Avenue Principal Carla Silberstein.
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A community effort, all of the workshops on Friday were run by parent volunteers. Some of the students participated in a Tree Hike, where they learned about the different types of trees surrounding their school, run by Silberstein's husband.
On both Wednesday and Friday, guest speakers visited Franklin Avenue. Rockland Solid Waste Authority's assistant solid waste educator Jennifer Sheridan gave an assembly about conservation and Orange and Rockland discussed energy conservation.
To further the importance of conservation, Franklin Avenue art teacher Tom Price, with help from parent volunteers, created a house made from collected plastic gallon water and milk jugs to show how many jugs are used by the school's families.
Price also created a giraffe from plastic soda bottles. The visual of the amount of plastic Pearl River families use is extremely effective.
Franklin Avenue emphasizes the importance of conservation and recycling through example.
"We're recycling all sorts of paper and plastic," said Silberstein. "The students surveyed all around the school and learned about our compost bins."
All Franklin Avenue students grades Kindergarten to fourth grade participated in the Earth Day factivities.
