WILTON — Academy Hill schoolchildren learned how to reduce, recycle and reuse Thursday and got a lot of exercise and fresh air while they were at it.
Donna M. Perry/Sun Journal
Syara Hamilton, left, throws a plastic jug, which is not No. 2 plastic, into a trash barrel as fellow third-grader, Mara Macomber tries to figure out where the cardboard egg carton goes. Students at the Academy Hill School in Wilton took a field trip Thursday to the Wilton Transfer Station to learn how to recycle, reuse and reduce waste. Station Manager Hollis Tyler gave students hints if they appeared to be stumped on where items should go, and also told them when they didn't put the items in the correct bin.
Donna M. Perry/Sun Journal
Mackenzie Libby, foreground, a third-grader at the Academy Hill School in Wilton, checks a recycling bucket Thursday to see if her cardboard item goes in it. Classmate Mariel Damon was also searching for the proper bin as Wilton Transfer Station Manager Hollis Tyler watches during a field trip that featured recycling, education and exercise.
Donna M. Perry/Sun Journal
Jessi Rose, a Wilton Transfer Station attendant, explains a relay recycling game to Academy Hill Students Thursday during a field trip to the station.
The students took a field trip to the Wilton Transfer Station as part of the Maine Community Foundation's grant to the town for a Recycle and Share Project. The project's purpose is to educate the community about recycling and to create a place where people can share reusable items with other community members.
Part of the grant covered a field trip for local students to learn about the recycling process during Maine Recycles Week, Station Manager Hollis Tyler said. Wilton's Recycling Committee is also in the process of reviewing options for a share shack for the Transfer Station.
Station attendant Jessi Rose explained a relay race game on recyclables to Michele Marble's third-graders. The students were to run to buckets set out in a line with names of different recyclables written on them. There was also a bucket for trash.
"This is a race. You're going to run and get some energy out," Rose told them.
Two lines were formed. Students in each line chose an item from a bin and ran to the buckets labeled colored jugs, cardboard, magazines and newspapers, aluminum cans, tin cans and No. 2 jugs. If they couldn't figure out which bucket to deposit the item in, Tyler gave them a hint.
Students also had a chance to make bookmarks out of miscellaneous stuff, play games that tested their knowledge, learned how to compost and make different articles out of newspapers and other used products.
They also learned the fine points of composting. Volunteer Alison Duncan played a compost lasagna game. First she taught the kids about what could be composted and what couldn't, Duncan said. Food and yard scraps may be composted but not meat or dairy.
They learned that compost is a mix of carbon and nitrogen, she said. Carbons were items such as leaves and were used as the lasagna noodles. Nitrogens were food scraps or grass clippings. They used cooked spaghetti as their noodles.
Mariel Damon, a third-grader who was waiting in line for another turn at the recyclable relay race, said the field trip was fun.
"We learned to reuse, reduce and recycle," she said.
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