Summary: 12/7 Meeting and Spring Project

On Friday, 12/7, we spent the afternoon teaching the kids about composting and then revealed our exciting spring 2019 project: launching composting during snack-time at Mason-Rice. With Principal Bultema's support, the Green Team Kids will help lead composting at Mason-Rice starting next March!

As a quick background: Mason-Rice does not currently compost during snack or lunch. This is probably not surprising, since - as Newton residents would know - the City of Newton currently does not provide for compost pickup. Accordingly, Mason-Rice students' food scraps must be thrown into the trash. However, over the years, a couple of elementary schools in Newton (Underwood and Peirce) have started to compost on their own campuses thanks to the initiative of environmentally-minded and motivated individuals at the respective schools (typically a staff member). This fall, the City of Newton has also launched compost pick-up at its newest elementary schools -- Zervas and Angier. Since the current city budget is limited to pick-up at these two new schools, we decided that this is a perfect opportunity for the Green Team Kids to take action at Mason-Rice.

As a first step, we worked with the kids to learn as much as we could about composting. We started out with a fun online sorting game from the National Geographic website, and then moved on to learning the fundamentals of composting.

To internalize these concepts, we played a fun "Compost" card game in groups.

To give the students some more context and exposure to the kinds of exciting new "green" technologies that exist today, we also watched a video about anaerobic digester facilities, including at the Deer Island Sewage Treatment Plant. If you would like, feel free to take a look at our presentation slides and videos here.

We look forward to seeing everyone on 12/14 for our "Recycled Gift Exchange"!

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Our last meeting!

On June 7, we Green Team coordinators were happily surprised and showered with beautiful flowers, cards and gifts from our Green Team Kids and their parents. Were were thrilled to hear how much the students enjoyed the programming over the year, and we thank the parents for their ongoing support and generosity! To cap off a great year and to enjoy the beautiful summer afternoon, we enjoyed a scavenger hunt outdoors that covered numerous topics we've discussed over the course of the year followed by frozen treats, a short presentation by Kate and Audrey about eating vegan (this was a topic we were going to cover in an earlier session, when we went to visit the Mayor instead!), and then a photo slideshow of the year. Thanks everyone for an amazing year, and have a great summer!

Our Kickoff Meeting (10/26/2018)

On the afternoon of October 26th, we launched our first Mason-Rice Green Team Kids meeting for the year. We had approximately fourteen 3rd and 4th graders with a mix of knowledge and interest in environmental issues and actions they can take to help protect our planet. As a group, we discussed what they would like to do as members of Green Team Kids (the most popular response was "making posters" to raise awareness, which we will be doing at the next meeting). Then we launched into our first substantive topic: TRASH. Below is a copy of some of the slides and videos from our presentation. October 26 Presentation Slides For those who would like to learn more about how the City of Newton manages its trash and recycling, please check out the "Where Does My Trash and Recycling Go?" section on the City's website .

"Crystal Lake" : A Special Presentation with Crystal Lake Conservancy Co-President Janice Bourque on March 11@4-5pm

Please join the Mason-Rice Green Team and our guest speaker, Crystal Lake Conservancy Co-President Janice Bourque for an interactive and educational presentation on March 11 about Crystal Lake! Join us to learn and ask questions about all things relating to Crystal Lake, including: the history of the lake, how it formed, where it gets its water, animals in/around the lake, pollutants and how to keep it healthy. Sign up your child to come learn about this important topic, and feel free to join as well! RSVP here . Zoom info will be sent to all registered participants at least two days prior to the event.

Mason-Rice Green Team Kids!

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