Halloween! make your costumes from recycled materials!!!

Kids making your own costumes can be fun! and there is so much there to be creative with and it is always great to recycle.

I saw, in town and near here some homemade costumes recently that I want to share with you! 

These were not for Halloween but maybe they will spur up some ideas. If you do make your own costume, I would love to see it. Send me your photos or link them to this post. 

Sprout's email  gogreence@gmail.com 

Sprout!

At the Lake Eden Leaf Festival, the characters in the children's parade were made completely out of garbage and they were gorgeous! Check it out! What do you see in the above photos, that you recognize? Wow! Maybe we should also make our Homecoming floats with what is usually garbage...

Clemson University student Andrew Temples, designed a dress out of an abandoned couch and used coffee filters. Even the zipper for the dress came from the couch! The coffee stained filters are beautiful! what do you think? Maybe I will also see you in downtown Clemson this Thursday in a fantastic costume out of your disposed items!!

Art project with empty paper towel rolls? Bring yours to school!

Kids, if you use paper towels, bring in your empty rolls to school! Ms. Purnell (the new art teacher at Clemson Elementary) has been collecting them but still needs more for a project the third graders will be doing in November.

Just put them in your backpack and drop them off in the collect box at the end of the 3rd grade hall or drop them off at your art class.

Field Trip

Guys, you won't believe the cool fieldtrip I went to with the 3rd grade classes!

We visited the Pickens Transfer Station where I saw what happens with all our trash after it gets picked up. I learned, that if we separate recyclables, they come to this huge transfer station and they get bailed up into giant, compressed cubes, and these recyclables are sold to recycling companies that make new things out of them. Our county earns money with this.

I also saw that everything that we don't put into our recycling bins, is collected here and gets trucked down to Homer, Georgia. We need to take it so far, because we don't have our own lined landfill. (We used to have one, but it filled up and is covered with soil now. Methane gas is still escaping from the decomposing waste, though...) Taking away our unselected trash costs out county 1 million dollars!

See, if we made less trash buy reducing our waste, or reusing some items, or by separating our recyclables, we wouln't need to spend such a big chunk of our county taxes on getting rid of our junk. Do your parents know this?

Click here for more pictures!

Great Go Green Tour! Kids send us your visions!

As you might know, 141 third graders from Clemson Elementary went on a great Go Green tour through our small city last week. They went to a recycling center where they heard a Land fill talk, visited the Clemson Sustainable Agriculture Farm were they heard a worm bin talk and ended their day at the Picture Green event at Clemson University where they looked at Visions for Self-Sufficient cities by Clemson University Architecture students. Go Green!! Go! 

Hey kids, tell me, Sprout, your vision for a self-sufficient city, one that takes care of itself and doesn't abuse the environment. You can write your idea on this post or email me drawings at gogreence@gmail.com!.

In this city called Reciprocity, waste is used and reused to make the city work. Everything is good for something, everything is recycled. Human waste is turned into fuel to make things work. The city works a little like a worm bin. 

In this city, harmful gases created by cars are transformed into Oxygen through photosynthesis using algae and streets are turned into parks.  Many existing cities can be transformed like this. The name of this proposal is Go the Park Way.

In this city every drop of water is collected and used for many of our water needs. This city, which acts like a sponge is called Pourouscity.

Don't forget kids! send me your ideas! together, we can think about how to make our cities and our world more Green, more ecological! ____ Sprout

Sprout's Summer

Look, this is how Sprout spent this summer! Can you write a title that can go under these pictures? Send me your captions in the "comment" link bellow, or e-mail me your ideas to gogreence@gmail.com!

2008/09 Recycling Numbers

Spout Awards

Sprout says "THANK YOU!" to faculty and staff members of CES who went green in the 2008/09 schoolyear.

And the winners are:
Linda Knudsen – paperless distributor
Lorrie Jones –general helpfulness
Dr. Ken Weichel –general cooperation
Rosemary Blintz – morning announcements

Ms. Hill (5th) – garden compost
Ms. Hardin (IMA) – worm bin
Ms. Merritt (2nd) – aluminum recycling bin
Ms. Nunamaker (1st) – recycling advocate

Ms. Ray (Self-contained) – paper recycling
Ms. Whitlock (self-contained) – aluminum recyling

Michelle Conley (K), Joni Campbell – collecting plastic
Elizabeth Felder (K), Tracy Woods – using recycled material
Michelle Johnson (K), Martina Killermann – recycling unit, recycled art
Mandy McAtee (K), Janet Lester – using recycled materials
Trisha McGinn (K), Pat Bennett – using recycled materials
Marla Rhoads (K), Geneva Hicks– using recycled materials