Sixth-graders at Mebane Middle School commemorated Earth Day on April 22 by pulling together to both beautify the school’s campus and lend a helping hand to the environment.
With a special visit by Alachua Mayor Bonnie Burgess, students were given an extra shot of enthusiasm when she told a rousing rendition of a folk tale about an emperor and his seeds. Burgess also told the students how proud of the school she was since it was her high school.
Student Wesley Lopez also challenged students to take better care of their environment, even beyond the Earth Day celebration, by picking up litter around school and the community
“Sometimes we don’t take care of our planet like we need to…we need to take responsibility for our actions,” Lopez said as he urged his fellow students to “Take a small amount of time each day to do something to help save our planet.”
After Principal Shane Andrew led the sixth-grade class in the Mebane Mustangs cheer, students got down to business with their Earth Day tasks. Across the Mebane campus, students planted flowers, shrubs and a variety of trees, donated by the local Wal-Mart distribution center and the Wal-Mart logistics division. A half-dozen Wal-Mart employees helped unload pickup-truck loads of dogwood trees, flowering plants and citrus trees.
One prized citrus tree was placed near Mebane’s front office, just outside of Andrew’s office window.
“Let’s put this one right outside my window so I can keep an eye on it,” Andrew joked of the citrus tree.
With yard implements in hand, a handful of students, Mayor Burgess and one teacher with a green thumb got the tree planted and watered.
The idea for Mebane’s Earth Day activities was born in part from a University of Florida program called Science Partners in Inquiry-based Collaborative Education (SPICE). Organizers from SPICE said when they brought the idea to Andrew, they didn’t realize how big it was going to be, but said they were pleasantly surprised with how much he expanded the scope and reach of the project.
SPICE is a five-year project funded by the National Science Foundation to train University of Florida graduate students in teaching and to foster inquiry-based learning of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in Gainesville-area under-resourced middle schools.