Pumpkin Alert!!!

Friday, November 4th, 2011 

Pumpkin Collection and Recycling Day at BCE

Early morning, freezing cold and dark!
Nonetheless, we had quite a crowd of 1st and 4th grade volunteers with parents together to help take pumpkins out of cars and into the pick up truck and trailer.

Three first graders redirecting traffic:

A BCE student carrying a pumpkin to the trailer:

After morning drop off, we had the pick up truck full to the max with pumpkins.
The trailer was about 1/3 full.

Coming back in the afternoon, the trailer was packed with pumpkins!
It was quite an orange sight!

Such a great turn out and
a wonderful community effort to save pumpkins from going to landfill and harming our Earth through green house gases.

A few more parents came to drop off pumpkins once school was out.
BCE students helping with pumpkin collection in the afternoon:

The trailer went to Alexander Family Farm.
BCBC Green Committe and a few students helped unload pumpkins.
It was very excited to see the cattle eat our pumpkins.
What a great way to reuse Halloween pumpkins!

Our 1st grade team took the pick up truck to Green Gates Farm. 
This farm has pigs and chickens that love pumpkins.

Unloading pumpkins in front of the compost bin:

A pig eating a pumpkin:

Tuesday and Thursday, November 1st and 3rd, 2011

1st grade volunteers and parents reminded car riders during morning drop off to keep their pumpkins out of the trash and landfill and rather bring them to school Friday, November 4th, for recycling (compost and animal food).

Monday, October 31, 2011: 

 ORANGE is the new “green” for Halloween at BCE

DON’T SCARE THE EARTH ON HALLOWEEN!

This FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 4^th the Barton Creek Elementary School will be collecting carved and uncarved pumpkins to share with nearby pig and cattle farms.

Parent and student volunteers will be collecting your pumpkins during morning “Drop- Off” OR if you prefer, place your pumpkins in the trailer parked behind the school anytime that same day. The trailer will leave BCE after school.

Not only will we be making quite a few cows and pigs happy with a pumpkin feast, our Earth will thank you as well for being ORANGE (The new “green” for Halloween)! 

Did You Know?
"About 1.1 billion pounds of pumpkin end up in our landfills after Halloween. Not only do these pumpkins take up space, they emit methane, a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide." [1]

 “If just 10 percent of all pumpkins sold this year were composted instead of being thrown out with the garbage, 100 million pounds of waste could be kept from the nation's landfills annually. The effect of this level of waste reduction would be as though nearly 42,000 U.S. households stopped producing garbage altogether.” [2]

[1] http://www.opportunitygreen.com

[2] www.blueegg.com/answer/Compost-Your-Jack-O-Lantern.html

Composting Fridays at BCE

Barton Creek Elementary school is proud to announce:
Composting Fridays!

We are composting all fruit and veggie leftovers. 
Our BCE students know: "First Eat, Then Compost".

Why do we want to compost at BCE?
Are a few pounds of compost every Friday really worth while the trouble
(our very first Friday we had 38 pounds)?
You bet!

1st grade students composting fruit leftovers

Our kids are the future to a greener earth. It is not really about composting a few pounds of leftovers here and there, it is about educating our children about a greener earth, not being wasteful but being respectful and responsible citizens, learning about soil (dry Texas soil vs lifely compost soil) and just having FUN!
Yes, composting is FUN! BCE students are all excited to compost.

 All of 1st grade took over composting as a year long service project. The kids learned about soil, learned what to compost and how, made poster boards and educated all other grades about composting.

Math and Composting?
We weigh each compost bucket and the kids get to add the weight of 4 compost buckets together.

 A view into our compost  bin:

 Hopefully by spring time we will have compost for BCE's veggie garden!

Laptop Lunchboxes - Coupon Code!

Great news for all BCE parents:
we have a coupon code just for our school!!!

Get your Laptop Lunchbox now and save 15% of your order. 

Contact Birgit to get your coupon code to save those 15%.

Thank you all for keeping ziplog bags out of our school trash and landfills!!!

BCE goes green, one step at a time ...

and we need EVERYONE's help to keep our Earth green!

Green Party Box

The box is indeed GREEN.
The contents is GREEN.
What more can our earth wish for?

Here is the scoop: our BCE Green Party Box has reusable plates, cups and spoons for an entire classroom.
No more disposable plates,
no more individual drinks (our earth is so much happier when we recycle one big bottle of water and juice rather than 20+ small bottles!),
no more plastic cutlery ending up in our landfills.

If your classroom has a treat or party day, please use our Green Party Box. It is sitting in the library, waiting to be used. Sign up sheet and instructions are in the Recycling Mailbox in the front office.

Let the BCE Green Committee know if you have any questions or concerns.