Spotlight on Rossiter Elementary

A Closer Look at Rossiter Elementary

By Jen Cullin

Rossiter Elementary is fairly new to a school-wide recycling program. The recycling program, which was started by Speech Language Pathologist Molly Smart, became a part of the S.A.V.E. business recycling route in the fall of 2009. Since then, S.A.V.E. and Rossiter Elementary have continued to work together.

Recycling bins are located throughout the school in classrooms, offices, and the kitchen. The duty of picking up recycling is a school job, which students can apply for. Students collect recycling from all of the classrooms then bring the materials to a centralized recycling area in the school. This type of system is not only beneficial to the school since they do not have to pay someone to do the extra work, but also beneficial to the students, as it gives them responsibility and job experience while preparing them for a lifetime of recycling.

S.A.V.E. and Rossiter continued to work together in the fall when I was able to teach a recycling lesson to Mrs. Estep’s 2^nd grade class and Mrs. Murphy’s 4^th grade class. We talked about what it means to reduce, reuse, and recycle and even had a recycling relay. Students were tested on whether things could be reused, recycled, or had to be thrown away. This activity is extremely entertaining; it is amazing what uses kids will come up with for something that an adult would say to throw away.

This spring I was then asked to be one of the teachers for Rossiter’s Kids College program. The class was titled “Save the Planet” and occurred once a week for three weeks. During the first week we talked about the three Rs of recycling. The second week we learned about litter and how it can be bad for the environment, and then we picked up litter on the school grounds. The kids were amazed to see what kinds of garbage they found around their school! On the final week we played “Save the Planet Jeopardy” as a recap of the things we covered in the previous weeks.

According to Molly Smart, “We have greatly increased the awareness about our environment and how recycling affects our world with help from S.A.V.E. The students are excited about it, they enjoy participating, and it has prompted them to ask teachers and parents what they can do to make a difference.“