Daily and Weekly focus on trash/environment

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This group of four sixth grade leadership students were very motivated to have the Meiners Oaks Community reduce their trash, electricity, food waste, and pollution. For the past few years we have had an Environmental Weekly Focus on our campus. The team wanted to continue this goal, and added their own twist on the activities. They made up daily rhymes for students to remember and it was very successful!

They also made weekly announcements to remind students and staff of the focus. We continued to have dark rooms on Monday, waste free lunch containers and less trash on Tuesdays. In addition, more bike riders and walkers were observed on Wednesdays, and students were picking up trash around the whole campus on Thursdays. Fridays turned out to be what each class wanted to concentrate on. Most chose to reduce electricity or pick up trash. Next year we want to take more data to increase our reduction numbers. We also think rewarding those who participate would be a good plan. Students seem to respond to rewards when recognized for doing the right activity on a particular day.

The Eco-Campus group were a large contributor in making sure we had a clean trash sort each day. They helped set up a daily schedule that involved each of the 25 student leadership students. Their job was to make sure each student sorted their trash correctly. We are involved in a trash audit each year. This is supported by our "Food for Thought" program in our city. They are a nonprofit group in the Ojai Valley that teaches all levels of learners about eating right and reducing our footprint on the earth. We are involved in a wet waste program. Three times a week our wet waste is picked up by the trash hauler and taken to Agromin composting. Our food waste is then turned into compost, which is sold to the public. This is a very successful program and our audit this year resulted in 87% of our waste being diverted from the landfills!

This year we also painted our sort signs on wood. We used outdoor paint, hoping they would last through the year. It turned out to be a great idea! The sorting sections are Wet Waste, Trash, Recycle, Milk/Juice Boxes, and Stack Trays. These labels were develpoed by our trash company, EJ Harrison, and Donald Sealund.

In addition to monitoring the daily sort they designed "good trash sorting tickets". These tickets were made by the team and passed out to those students who sorted trash on their own. Each Friday, the team went to the office and chose some tickets out of the box. Winners were announced on the school intercom system, and came to office to chose from the prize box. This was very successful!

Lastly, this group also supported an Earth Day Assembly. Each class signed up to participate. It was a fun day of songs, poems, and pledges by each class.