Students get hands-on with their trash at school

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Jeff Beamish - View Bio

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Kids are often told to take out the trash. In an unusual step, the students at Kino School are told to bring their trash to class!

Teacher Jennifer Shelton said, "I thought it would be a good idea to take our students to see where all of our trash goes and then we thought up a neat project for them to get involved & hands-on and figure out how much we use every day."

Her Environmental Awareness class is sorting through garbage and weighing the waste. Student Diego Huerta said, ""We take all our trash and we figure out what is landfill trash, which can be recycled."

After weighing their trash, they have a sheet to track their trash. It has 6 different categories including one to see how much garbage is compostable. The compostable materials go to the school's greenhouse. The rest of the trash, comes with them on a field trip.

Shelton says, "We're going to go to the landfill on Friday and the recycling facility and we will be going looking at where things are recycled and where they go."

One thing these kids won't be throwing away: the lesson they're learning.

"Respect Mother Nature," said Huerta, "Be nice to the Earth. Reduce, reuse, recycle".

To learn more about the Kino School, visit their website at: http://www.kinoschool.org.