Earth Day Groceries - FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) Information for the Fourth Annual Earth Day Groceries Project on the Internet! (April 22, 1997) Updated July 11, 1996 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. What is this? A. Project Description B. History 2. What do we do? 3. What do we need? 4. What will we get? 5. What are the benefits? 6. Why on the Internet? 7. Who sponsors this? 8. What is the goal? 9. Can I find out more about this? 10. Results from 1995 and 1996? 11. Plans for the future? Plastic bags? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. WHAT IS THIS? Earth Day Groceries is a project that can be done by a school to involve students in an activity to advance environmental awareness. Earth Day always falls on April 22nd. Briefly, students decorate paper grocery bags from a local grocery store and return them to the store. The decorated bags are then distributed (filled with groceries) to shoppers on Earth Day. We hope you will join us and many others in making this a very special day! 1.A. PROJECT DESCRIPTION (from the 1994 announcement): Here's a wonderful activity to involve students and their communities in Earth Day (April 22). My classroom of third graders will be the facilitators for our school, and would love to hear from you/your school if you decide to participate in the project. Grocery Bags on Earth Day! Each student in the school decorates a large paper grocery bag from a local store with a picture of the earth, the words "Earth Day, 1994" (or similar), the name of their school, and possibly some catchy Earth Day slogan (i.e., Re-duce, Re-use, Re-cycle). When the bags are decorated, they are returned to the store to be distributed to shoppers on Earth Day. That's all there is to it - past response has been very positive, both from the school and the community. As a matter of fact, SO positive, that we at Arbor Heights Elementary want to spread the word to get as many Earth Day Grocery Bags passed out as we can! So..... please let us know how many bags you passed out on Earth Day. If you respond, my students will tabulate the total and send you back (by the end of April) the total number distributed (and the names of participating schools). Imagine all the thousands of Earth Day Grocery Bags people will be unpacking in their kitchens! 1.B. HISTORY: The idea of decorating grocery bags for Earth Day first came from a Seattle School District summer workshop I attended a few years ago. The project was first distributed to two listservs (Ednet and Kidsphere) in early March. In 1994 over 10,000 students from all over the U.S. and Canada decorated over 13,000 Earth Day grocery bags. Forty-three schools participated, from preschoolers through high schoolers. Reports from each participating school were sent to all those who participated. See the end of this document for details on the 1995 and 1996 projects. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. WHAT DO WE DO? (from the 1994 announcement) 1. Contact the manager of a local grocery store (more meaningful to all involved if it's a store where families in your school shop). 2. Ask if you can have a "bundle" (that's 500!) of large paper grocery bags to decorate for Earth Day at your school. Explain that you'll return them a day or two before Earth Day (April 22). It might be helpful to bring along an already decorated bag to show. It's also helpful if the bags you get have one blank (or pretty clear) side. 3. Deciding who will make the bags and what they will look like is up to you. We've tried to make ours look somewhat uniform and still leave some room for individual expression. I made a few templates of the earth from different angles showing the continents out of three pound coffee can lids. The kids could then trace the "earth" and color in (actually, markers are more ecologically correct than crayons) the oceans and continents. We also had our school name sort of encircle the earth. When we distributed the bags and templates to classrooms, we also sent along a couple of examples of completed bags and some suggestions for slogans, like "Earth Day, 1994", "Save Our Earth", "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle", etc. Some kids wanted to put their names, classroom number, etc. on, and we said fine, just NO LAST NAMES. I have had small groups of students distribute the bags and do a brief demonstration in each classroom. 4. When the bags were collected from classrooms, I had some decisions to make regarding spelling accuracy and how that might reflect on our school, but I would say 99% of the bags went out "as is". 5. Delivering the bags to the store has been really quite fun for the class, and was a good public relations opportunity for our school as well. You might let your school and grocer know that others across the country are also doing the same thing! Good luck with your bags, and please remember to send us a note saying how many bags you decorated. We'll send you the total number of bags made by the end of April. Have a great Earth Day! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. WHAT DO WE NEED? You will first need someone from your school to contact your local grocer and coordinate the effort of your school. Once a cooperative grocer has been identified, you can pick up the bags and figure out how you want to set up your school effort. No money or special materials are needed - just some time! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. WHAT WILL WE GET? If you like, you can receive several email messages which include all the reports from all participating schools. In 1995 and 1996, the email reports totaled about 100K! If you would like to receive reports via email, just note that when you send in your "bag report" to Mark Ahlness at mahlness@cks.ssd.k12.wa.us. I'll be happy to send them on to you. You will then receive several email messages from Arbor Heights School. These will include all reports from participating schools, including email addresses (in case you'd like to exchange more information and stories with others). All reports will also be archived on the Earth Day Groceries World Wide Web site at http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/earthday.html. They will be added to the site within a day or two of their receipt. The reports will be added to the interactive imagemap on the site as soon as possible (early May?). You will also have the opportunity of having pictures of the project effort at your school available on the Earth Day Groceries WWW site. For more information on this, check out the Earth Day Groceries Pictures page at http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/earthpic.html, or send email to mahlness@cks.ssd.k12.wa.us. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS? One of the biggest benefits reported from previous participants was a very positive response from the local community, and often the establishment of a positive relationship with a local business. Students gain an increased awareness about Earth Day and the importance of environmental conservation. Opportunities for educational enrichment will present themselves, especially in the areas of math and geography. The email messages you receive will include names and locations of all schools participating, as well as the number of bags each school made. The web site has a clickable map where you can read reports from selected regions. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. WHY ON THE INTERNET? The Internet presents an incredible opportunity for spreading ideas of this type at little or no cost. It also provides the opportunity for the exchange of ideas between schools involved. Finally, the Internet has the capacity to create the idea of "family" between schools involved, reduce and shrink global boundaries, and unite students and teachers in a shared mission and goal. And let us not forget speed of communication! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. WHO SPONSORS THIS? Arbor Heights School is providing a central "hub" for reports of bag counts and stories people choose to share about their experiences. Mark Ahlness, a third grade teacher at Arbor Heights, is handling the email through his Internet account with the Seattle School District. The web site is on his personal account with a local Internet provider. This project is not funded by any external source and is not affiliated with any organization. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. WHAT IS THE GOAL? The goal is first and foremost environmental awareness. The goal is to involve as many schools and students as possible, to start a movement, if you will! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. CAN I FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THIS? Yes! You can visit the Arbor Heights Elementary School Home Page on the World Wide Web (http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/arborhts.html). There you will find all the reports from those who participated in 1994, 1995, and 1996, as well as this document. You will also find pictures of children involved in all aspects of the project. You can go directly to the Earth Day Groceries page at: http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/earthday.html. The site was visited by nearly 10,000 people during the 1995 - 1996 school year. The page is listed as a link from virtually every page on the World Wide Web dealing with Earth Day and education. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10. RESULTS FROM 1995 AND 1996 In 1995 (the 25th anniversary of Earth Day!) 115 schools from across the US and Canada participated. Over 45,000 Earth Day Grocery Bags were decorated and distributed to shoppers. Since some schools decorated more than one bag per student, it's difficult to calculate the exact measure of student involvement. A reasonable estimate would put about 40,000 school children involved. A mailing list was established at the end of the project, so that participants could exchange ideas. All participants were sent email copies of the reports from all schools. In 1996, 180 schools participated, and students decorated 75,632 earth day grocery bags! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11. PLANS FOR THE FUTURE We hope to continue the project again in 1997. Earth Day always is on April 22nd, and it falls on a Tuesday in 1997. We need to examine the issue of plastic bags. Many stores simply do not give out paper bags. Beyond that, stores in many countries do not hand out bags at all - you bring your own. So, to keep this project growing, and to expand it to include other countries, we need to make some decisions and come up with some new wrinkles. Here's a neat idea sent in from Diane Fetty, a teacher at Barboursville Middle School in Barboursville, WV : "About plastic bags, students could make banners or flyers stating how to recycle and reuse these bags at home. These could be put into the plastic bags." Great! Send in the count of your plastic bag flyers made and distributed, and we'll include them in the total. Thanks Diane! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- We hope you have enough information now to get you started on this project. If you would like even more information, send a message to Mark Ahlness at mahlness@cks.ssd.k12.wa.us. Good luck, and send in your "bag count" as soon as you can. Happy Earth Day, 1997!