Newbridge Road's Environmental Club Celebrates Earth Week

Newbridge Road's Environmental Club, the Earth Squad, has created a week-long series of environmental events in honor of Earth Day. 

The club, headed by sixth grade teacher, Michael Bevilacqua, is made up of fifth and sixth grade students who meet weekly to discuss how to make the earth cleaner, greener and how to teach others to do so. Their mission is to "to help spread awareness about the various environmental issues our world currently faces."

The club has been working for weeks on organizing various events that the whole school is to take part in-- with each day being designated with a different event. As Jake B., a student in Mrs. Barrins's sixth grade class explained, the point of Earth Week is to "help the earth" and show Newbridge Road "that they should keep helping [the earth] after Earth Week is over."

In an effort to save paper, each morning students announce over the loudspeaker the event for the day and remind the school to participate. The club was buzzing with excitement as Ms. Slutsky's fifth graders, Sean F. and Madison U. exclaimed that they were "excited for all the events this week."

Monday kicked off Earth Week with Lights-Out Day, in which classes are asked to turn off all lights in an effort to save electricity. Other events include, No Homework Day and Garbage Free Lunch Day, in which students are asked to take only the amount of napkins or plastic utensils they need.

No Homework Day is designed to save paper and encourage teachers to post necessary materials on computers that students can access. The week is rounded out with Green Slogan Day, where students are encouraged to wear a shirt with a green slogan, in an effort to remind others to be environmentally aware.

Perhaps the most notable event occurred on Tuesday, and was suggested by Mrs. Collin's student, Stacy B. The event asks students and teachers to bring in old sneakers, so that they can be dropped off at the Nike Reuse-a-Shoe Center in Oceanside. Stacy explained that Nike reuses old shoes, taking the rubber soles, foam and fiber to create track fields, basketball courts and playground surfacing. The Nike Web site explains the process and offers a list of the closest Reuse-a-Shoe drop-off centers. To date 25,056,779 shoes have been collected globally.

There will also be a competition throughout the week asking students to bring in a project made solely from recycled materials. Some suggestions include a bird feeder made from paper towel holders, a toy animal made from tin cans or anything else  students can think of. Projects will be displayed throughout the classrooms and The Earth Squad will pick the most creative.

The Earth Squad hopes to make an impact and strives to remind the school and town of Bellmore to "recycle, reuse and reduce."