PHOTOS: King School Earth Day Activities

King Composting Request

Attention Parents: Do you like to compost? WE DO! Are you interesting in continuing our composting program at King school during the winter months? WE ARE! If you answered yes to either one of those questions, we need your help!

The King School Composting Team is in need of parent volunteers willing to take our winter compost to the local city drop off site.

The City of Ann Arbor does not come and pick up compost during the months of December through March. We are looking for parents to come Tuesdays and Fridays for pick up and drop off. Our goal is to have winterized composting onsite by the 2010/2011 school year, but until then we need to take it to our local center. If you are interested in helping, please contact Ms. Shah at shahn@aaps.k12.mi.us or give her a call at (734) 994-1940. Thank you for your support.

King School Is Certified Green!

Over spring break, Ms. Shah attended the Michigan Green Schools Award Ceremony at which King School was recognized for the efforts of the student council including the following:

• Being the first elementary school in Ann Arbor to begin composting

• Our Earth Day Festival

• Our adoption of the Saw Whet Owl housed at the Leslie Science and Nature Center.

Thank you Ms. Shah and to everyone for their hard work around becoming a certified green school!

Thank you also to our student council advisors: Dr. Michalik, Ms. Shah, Mrs. Gracey.

King Composting Information

KING COMPOSTERS!
We are launching a new and exciting composting initiative at King School! All kids and staff will be composting!! This program was developed through Student Council’s Green Team and designed to reduce our school’s environmental impact by cutting down the use of landfill space. This not only helps us to become responsible citizens for our planet, but it enables us to support our community as well. By turning uncooked vegetative waste into municipal composting, a beneficial end product is made and can be used to improve our community.
Compostable materials will be placed in designated composting bins in our school lunchroom, teacher’s lounge, classrooms, and kitchen. The compostable materials will be picked up by the city one day a week through the months of April, May, June, September, October, and November.
Things that CAN be composted are raw food items such as: Fruit /Vegetable Scraps, Salad trimmings, Vegetable Peelings, Onion Skins, Egg Shells, Coffee Grounds, Coffee Filters, Tea Bags, and Flowers. Things that CAN NOT be composted are: Meat, Cheese, Poultry, Cooked Food, Fish liquids, Plate Scrapings, Sauces, Oils, Fats, Butters, Yogurt, Plastic Wrap, Utensils, Rubber Bands, Foil, Polystyrene Foam Gloves, and Wrappers of any kind. If you have any questions, you can contact Ms. Shah at shahn@aaps.k12.mi.us . Have fun and remember to compost!

Green School/Earth Day Update

Thanks to Dr. M. for sharing the info below about upcoming Green School and Earth Week activities AND thanks to the 5th grade and student council for all of their work on these initiatives!

Earth Posters
Students are creating posters in art to be displayed during Earth Week.

Voting on a King School RAPTOR
Students are learning about the eight raptors found at the Leslie Science Center. They will vote on April 9th to see which raptor we will adopt. Students will then be asked to earn $.25-$.50 by doing jobs at home or with neighbors. All money will be collected during Earth Week.

Hunters of the Sky
We are gearing up for a wonderful week after spring break. April 20th (9-9:50 a.m. for K-2; 10- 10:50 a.m. for 3-5) we have a presentation by Leslie Science Center- Hunters of the Sky, to kick off our week. The poster winner will have a special part in the performance. We will also get to meet the raptor that we are adopting!


Earth Day Festival
The entire 5th grade is responsible (with teacher help of course J ) for setting up our Earth Day Festival at King. The festival is April 22nd and is going to be tons of fun! (12:40- 1:40 p.m. K-2, 2:15-3:30 for 3rd, 2- 3:30 for 4th graders) Our class is responsible for ladder ball trivia about macro-invertebrates and a great magnetic fishing game, fishing for macro-invertebrates. The macro-invertebrates we are studying are those found in the Huron River. This is shaping up to be a wonderful leadership opportunity for our 5th graders and an incredible learning opportunity for the entire school about environmental issues that are literally right in our backyard.

Student Council News: King Goes Green

Students and staff at King have been working very hard to complete all of the necessary points or jobs to become Green School certified by the State of Michigan. To become certified, the school must complete at least “ten points” from a given list of criteria for becoming “green.” We have completed the following points: recycling paper, cardboard, containers, batteries, & printer cartridges; implementing an energy savings program; reusing magazines and newspapers; the media center has a plan for updating and using ecological materials.

One point (that should count for five) is our new composting endeavor spearheaded by Ms. Shah. All students will be treated to a composting skit, performed by our 5th grade green composting team (Zoe C., Jessica H., Mabel R., Yasmeena N., Margo K., Laura H., Alice D., Melissa N., Danielle B., Savoy D., Olivia C., Evan W., Bethany G.) on March 30 in the afternoon.

Two points we need to complete are adopting an endangered species and organizing a corresponding presentation. Student council members will use Powerpoint presentations to show students our progress with the Green School initiative, including the raptors that live at the Leslie Science Center. Following this presentation, students will vote on which raptor they want to adopt as a student body. Leslie Science Center will then present “Hunters of the Sky” on April 20, bringing with them our adopted raptor!

Our last points will be completed as part of our Earth Week celebrations. This will include: 5th graders creating six activities for our first ever Earth Day festival on April 22; Ms. Wayne is helping students create & organize an Earth Week poster contest; and all students will be cleaning up our playground and surrounding areas during this week.

Parents are invited to help during the Earth Day festival on April 22. K-2 children will be participating between 12-1:30 p.m. ; 3rd & 4th graders between 2- 3:30 p.m. Please contact Dr. M. if you can help supervise an activity. mailto:michali1@aaps.k12.mi.us

Landscape Quickie Note

The clean-up of the pond and parking lot area was completed by all three 5th grade classes. Thanks goes out to the kids in Mrs. Haddas's class, Mr. Taylor's class and Dr. Mihalik's class. These areas sure look a lot better! Please don't litter at King in the future, and we can put these helpful people out of a job and onto something new.

The mulch pile is going down... and guess who helped out? Mrs. Gatonez's class of eager, energetic and hard working first graders and the after school, equally enthusiastic King Care kids. All I have to do is walk and halls, smile and carry a bucket or pair of gloves around and I get volunteers left and right. It's a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling to have such King community spirit coming from people half my size! The future looks a bit more rosy now. The next challenge is getting my kids at home to be as ambitious, ditto?

Submitted by Linda M. Ryan
Landscape chair

Free e-Waste Recycling - May 10

2nd Annual Free e-Waste Recycling Event

Saturday, May 10, 9a.m. - 2p.m.

Pioneer High School Parking Lot

The Ann Arbor Public Schools and the Climate Savers Computing Initiative@the University of Michigan are co-sponsoring a free e-waste recycling event for the community in cooperation with Apple Computers.

-Save our land and water systems and responsibly recycle your personal electronics

-Protect the environment- Keep electronic equipment out of landfills

-Conserve natural resources- Materials in your electronics are highly reusable

Unload old or unused:

Computer systems, speakers, monitors, printers, telephone/cell phones, wires/cables, televisions, modems.

For a complete list of materials, go to climatesavers.umich.edu/e-waste.

All e-waste will be destroyed and recycled in the United States using an environmentally sound manner by an Environment Protection Agency-certified company courtesy of Apple Inc.

This event is for personal electronic equipment only. Last year, over 700 cars drove through the line!

Earth Week and Spring Clean Up

Earth Week and Spring Clean-up

I was literally blown away by the King students and classroom teachers' ENTHUSIASM during Earth Week! My heart was filled with inexpressable joy as I saw landscaping feats occurring all over the place, and even in the untidy courtyards that I can never manage to tame on my own. I elected to work with 3 classes sowing seed in the areas damaged by snow removal equipment. Mrs. Shaffer's first grade, Mrs. Gracey's third grade and Mr. Huyck's third grade worked incredibly hard to haul dirt, rake it out, seed the area, then cover the seed with more dirt and straw. Pray for rain and we'll have grass!

My projects weren't the only bill of affairs...

Dr. Mihalik's class cleaned the woods and area north of the parking lot. this was a huge, messy eye sore. Thank you fifth graders! They also weighed in trash and recyclables all day on Earth Day to see which one weighed more. Ask them if you get a chance. I'm curious, too.

Mrs. Lake's class also took the trash vs. recyclable challenge. What did they discover?

Mrs. Knorr's class raked, pulled weeds and scoured Megan's courtyard, collecting over 4 bags of yard waste.

Mrs. Shafie and Mr. Petty's classes raked and equally scoured Dorothy's natural courtyard. The bird bath is filled, the window cubbies have been swept!

Thank you King classes for your willing participation. Doesn't our school look so much better?!!!!! Please let me know what other classes did that I failed to mention.

Spring Clean-up happened even with our small, hard working crew. Saturday Ellen Hopkins, Ravi and Sushruta Shankar and Linda Ryan weeded all the flower beds and removed leaves from the west entry ground cover. Thank you mighty souls!

Late Saturday the mulch arrived and the mountain was partially depleted. Shan, Brian, and Rhea Cong along with my family, Carl, Rebecca, Catherine and me hauled mulch to dress up the flower beds. Much thanks to the Congs. Family power really makes a difference.

There is still mulch to be hauled.
If you or your family can help, please email me:

4ryanhouse@earthlink.net
Linda M. Ryan, Landscape Chair

It's not too late to write an essay or poem for Earth Day!

Writing is something all kids at King can do and do really well. The writing subject is our environment, how to care for it, and/or how to preserve it. Don't delay, the contest ends this Friday, April 18th. See below for the guidelines.

Contest Rules for Green Team essay writing
1. Write an essay / poem about how to care for the environment. (see example poem below).
2. Make sure to put your name, grade, and class on your essay / poem.
3. Put your essay / poem in the envelope outside Mrs. Knorr's room.
4. Turn in your essay / poem by April 17.
5. Poems must be at least 1 paragraph, and essays must be 3 paragraphs or whatever fits on 1 page.
6. Kindergarten and first graders are allowed to do pictures with a sentence under them.

Example poem: The things I've heard, the things I've seen, to imagine them all turning green. I'd say that if we continue being fair, the earth will be saved for people whom we care. Baily Williams, Mrs. Higgenboggin's class

Winning poems will be displayed on Earth Day!
submitted by Mrs. Ryan, Zoe, Laura, Christine, Michi and Alice in Mrs. Knorr's 4th grade

Green Team Challenge #3

Challenge #3

We're on a roll now... Hopefully you have tried to do challenges 1 and 2 by now. If not, it's not too late. Eliminating catalogs from filling up your mailbox and recycle bin can be remedied by going to www.catalogchoice.org. Also, we suggested that you try changing a light bulb or two to fluorescent ones to save on electricity.

Now for challenge # 3... Turn off the water when you're not using it. This means, don't just let it run while you're brushing your teeth, for example. Also check for leaky faucets that drip all day and night long. A fast dripping faucet can leak 20 - 30 gallons per day. A slow leaking faucet wastes 5 -10 gallons per day. In the worst case, this means almost 11,000 gallons a year! There's people in the world crying out because they need water! So why let it go wastefully down the drain? Be more GREEN, and except the challenge to be a water waste watcher!



Contest Rules for Green Team essay writing

1. Write an essay / poem about how to care for the environment. (see example poem below).

2. Make sure to put your name, grade, and class on your essay / poem.

3. Put your essay / poem in the envelope outside Mrs. Knorr's room.

4. Turn in your essay / poem by April 17.

5. Poems must be at least 1 paragraph, and essays must be 3 paragraphs or whatever fits on 1 page.

6. Kindergarten and first graders are allowed to do pictures with a sentence under them.


Example poem: The things I've heard, the things I've seen, to imagine them all turning green. I say that if we continue being fair, the earth will be saved for people whom we care. Baily Williams, Mrs. Higgenboggin's class


Winning poems will be displayed on Earth Day!

Green Team Update

by Linda M. Ryan, landscape chair

To the Parents:

As you may recall, every student at King Elementary School is called to serve on the Green Team. Being on the Green Team initially meant keeping King School clean and litter free. Good, clean, responsible fun, right? Yes! Well, the Green Team met their goal to keep King grounds clean for a month right before winter break, and everyone went home with a green pencil as a reward!

The 4th grade girls in Mrs. Knorr's class who have chaired this Team, namely Zoe Zimmerman and Michi Ota can't rest with just this monumental task completed. They have forged ahead with additional ways to help the environment. They needed help to do this, so Laura Hanselman and Christine Jahn have joined in on the leadership. They have made initial plans to ask the students at King to do 5 or 6 tasks at home. They will present one task per week through the end of March. The tasks include turning down the thermostat, carpooling more often, changing light bulbs to fluorescent bulbs, reusing paper, and cutting back on junk mail. The challenges aren't meant to be burdensome, just practical and "green!"

Watch your e-notes for each new task. Point it out to your child, if you can. Also take a look at the green posters in the halls for encouragement. We will be taking anonymous surveys to measure our change in environmental savvy and willingness to become more "green!"

To the Students at King:

Challenge #1 Cutting back on JUNK MAIL!

Is your mailbox filled with more catalogs than personal mail? Do you often see lots those same catalogs piling up in your recycling bin? Well, if you want to get rid of that junk, then go to www.catalogchoice.org.

Follow their directions, saving the backs of the catalogs to remove each catalog company by name. In a month or so, those catalogs will be out of your waste bins and back at the factory!

The MLK Green Team!

Have you heard about the King School Green Team? Every student at King is on this special team. The challenge for each member is to help keep the grounds at King clean... you know, no littering, period! The idea started with several of Mrs. Knorr's fourth graders, Zoe Zimmerman and Michiko Ota. In their minds, thoughts about the Green Team might involve more conscientious recycling, encouraging people to car pool, reducing wastes, and as a starter, keeping the grounds clean. I, Linda Ryan, chair the landscape committee and have picked up litter over the course of the year now and then. On my last round, I thought maybe this job could be become everyone's responsibility, but how would I pull this off? When I chatted with Mr. Karr about the issue, he told me about the Green Team ideas. As a matter of fact, he had a pile of great ideas that had been accumulating on his desk. He was looking for a way to enable Zoe and Michi to put their green thoughts into action! Thus, the Green Team challenge evolved. The challenge will last for one month ending right before winter break. At that time Mrs.Ryan will surf the King grounds for litter. If less then 3 cafeteria trays of litter are found, then the students at King will each get a reward. Posters, trash buckets by the doors, and weekly skits will encourage us all to keep the grounds clean. Are you up to the challenge?