Earth Day

The Synergy community celebrated Earth Day with flare—including a recycle relay, leaf rubbing, insect drawing, seed planting, energy audits, and a poetry reading.

The Ecoteam, a dedicated group of students led by co-advisors Rhea and Annie, organized the celebration. “The kids on the Ecoteam deserve all the credit.” Rhea said. “It’s a really enthusiastic group and they’re full of ideas.”

Students, teachers, and staff broke up into “families” (cross-grade groups of students, teachers, and staff) to participate in activities that celebrated nature and environmental stewardship. The groups identified trees and hunted for bugs (which they drew and then released) in the Soft Yard. They planted seeds in the Rainbow Room. They wrote nature-inspired poetry in the Sunroom. They measured the school’s environmental footprint by monitoring its solar energy use and conducting energy audits. They gathered puzzle pieces that revealed Earth Day messages. They raced across the hard yard —relay style—to deposit trash, compost, and recycling waste in the correct bins.

It was an afternoon of noisy, energetic, hands-on learning. At the end, when everyone gathered to read poetry, the crowd was exuberant. Poems featured tsunamis and baby owls, rainbows and roly-polies. One poem summed up the Earth Day spirit with this rallying cry: “The earth loves you so love it back!”

— by Connie Matthiessen; video by Russ Curtis

(More Earth Day photos)