Members of the Month: Recycling Kids, Inc.
One person's trash is another person's treasure.
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Teacher June Burton and her third grade students at Twin Lakes Elementary School proudly display the Recycling Kids, Inc., catalog and items they have recycled, along with their photo and adoption certificate of Howie, a winter visitor to Blue Spring State Park. (Photo courtesy of June Burton)
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Plastic bottles, Styrofoam trays, baby food jars. These items may represent junk to you, but to some clever California kids, they are diamonds in the rough. Third grade students at Twin Lakes Elementary school in El Monte have come up with a creative way to recycle trash, conserve natural resources, and help endangered animals at the same time. They are part of a student-run business called Recycling Kids, Inc.
“Recycling Kids, Inc., started back in 1992 as an answer to the question, ‘What can our classroom do to protect the environment?,’” says teacher June Burton. “We identified trash as a serious environmental problem both at home and at school. Several waste items such as Styrofoam, meat trays, plastic milk caps, detergent lids, and baby food jars were identified as target materials.”
As a homework assignment, the students were asked to think of ways to reuse the discarded items. They came up with ingenious ideas such as turning Styrofoam trays into airplanes and baby food jars into pumpkin candy jars. Painted plastic milk caps became "Happy Earth Pins," and detergent lids bloomed into flower pots. A plastic bottle became a bird feeder, a pencil holder, or a penguin bank.
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Bird feeders, pencil holders, and penguin banks are just some of the items the students have created from discarded materials. Profits from sales go to adopt endangered animals and help protect habitat. (Photo courtesy of June Burton).
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Over the years, Mrs. Burton and her students have used this creative process to develop a catalog of 75 items, including details on how each item can be made. Students take a copy of the catalog home so family members can select the items they want. The money generated from the business is then used to adopt endangered animals or protect habitat.
”Howie the manatee was our first adoptee, and it has been a classroom tradition to adopt him every year,” says Mrs. Burton. “The students like his playful nature, including his love of having his picture taken, and bumping the research canoe. They use information from their manatee booklet to write stories about what they have learned.”
Recycling Kids, Inc., has won numerous local, state, and national awards for its innovative approach to teaching students about conservation of natural resources and helping to protect endangered animals and their habitat. Math, writing, art, science, social science all connect in this student-run business, and it actively involves students in the decision-making process.
Sadly, next year will be Mrs. Burton’s last year at Twin Lakes Elementary. She is retiring after 35 years as an educator. But her legacy lives on. Over 300 students have participated in the Recycling Kids, Inc. business, and they are well educated in environmental activism.
“The students feel they can make a difference through these activities,” says Mrs. Burton. “Perhaps one of the most valuable lessons is that they can be educators too because they share with their families what they learned. Over the years, Howie has educated many students, families, and teachers about manatees and their situation. We love you Howie and please take care.”
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Howie is the adopted manatee of Mrs. Burton and Recycling Kids, Inc. Howie lives in the wild and winters at Blue Spring State Park near Orange City, Florida. A gregarious guy, Howie has been visiting the park since 1971 and is famous for having once tipped over the research canoe -- with the researchers in it!
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Look Mom, I'm On the Web Site!
If you are an SMC member and want to be featured as a Member of the Month, please send us a photo and tell us something about you, what you like about manatees, who your adopted manatee is, and why you became a member of Save the Manatee Club. Send an e-mail to education@savethemanatee.org. If we feature you at the web site, you’ll receive a manatee-related gift.
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