Middle School Students Brighten up School With Recycled Trash

Additional Links:
Front Page
Communications Center

The stained glass windows in the chapel have added a lot to the campus with their beautiful blues, reds and yellows. Now the Middle School has brought a different kind of "stained glass" to its building, and the predominant color is: Green.

The Middle School is serious about recycling, and under the leadership of art teacher Brent Roberts and recycling volunteer Cathy Foster, a CCES parent, the fifth grade decided to celebrate America Recycles Day in November by creating a sculpture out of recycled bottles.

The students collected one week's worth of plastic drink bottles from the recycling bins in the cafeteria, totaling 397 bottles in all. They then spent art class taking turns at different stations. One group would rinse the bottles and remove the labels, another colored the bottles with markers, while a third group worked on constructing the sculpture.

According to Roberts, "The entire class was very engaged in this project, working together to produce interesting art as well as promoting recycling."

During the project, the students learned that each day in America, 60 million water bottles are used, but very few make it to the recycling bin. With five plastic soda bottles yielding enough fiber to make one extra large tee shirt, the students figured that they can supply enough plastic bottles to make 3328 tee shirts in one year just by keeping plastics in the recycling loop and out of landfills!

Way to make a difference, fifth-graders!