Monday, January 31, 2011

Recology Field Trip - February 9th Late Start Morning

The Rieke Green Team and EcoThink club has arranged a field trip to Recology! Here we can see what is happening to the Styrofoam we have collected. This is the place where it is melted down to make material for other uses. We will have a sign-up sheet in the office for those who are interested in participating. We will meet 8:15, February 9th, at Rieke’s parking lot to arrange for car-pooling. This is a late start morning. The tour is at 9:00am. We plan for arrival time back at school to be 10:30am. For those who wish to travel directly the address is:

Recology, 4040 N. Suttle Rd., Portland OR, 97217

Friday, January 14, 2011

Thanks for coming to the first EcoThink meeting! Today your child was introduced to the concept of sustainability. We will be learning what sustainability is, how it affects us, our community and our planet and what we can do as individuals to live a more sustainable life to support future generations.

Please take some time to review what your child learned and check out some or all of these websites.


The fish game that the 3rd to 5th graders played is adapted from the Nuts Game by Juliean Edney and The Fish Game from Cloud Institute. Play it online at: www.cloudinstitute.org


Learn about growing and purchasing sustainable food

http://www.sustainabletable.org/home/


Calculate your ecological footprint here. How many earths would it take if everyone on earth had the same footprint?

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/calculators/

http://www.myfootprint.org/


More information about the sustainability framework - The Natural Step

www.ortns.org


The story of stuff is a 20-minutes fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our consumption patterns. It exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues.

www.storyofstuff.com


The secret life of paper - five minute video about paper waste.

www.secret-life.org/paper


Watch the made for TV movie of the story of the lorax

video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6650219631867189375


Or play Lorax games

www.seussville.com/games/lorax


Download the EPA’s ‘Follow That Trail’ activity book

www.epa.gov/osw/education/pdfs/k-3.pdf


Friday, January 7, 2011

Making a eco-resolution doesn't have to be hard. Remember, it's the small steps that count. Here are some suggestions:

10 Environmental New Year's Resolutions by the Biofriendly Blog


Wednesday, January 5, 2011



Happy New Year!

On January 14th we will be having our first Rieke EcoThink Club meeting at 3:10 in Room 12. Looking forward to meeting you all!


Styrofoam Drive


The Green Teams at Rieke, Hayhurst and Maplewood together with Recology have organized a Styrofoam collection drive.


Where: Mary Rieke Elementary

When: February 5th from 9am-12pm

February 6th from 10am-2pm.


Please do your part to help keep Styrofoam out of landfills. We welcome you to leave it with us! Recology, with a company rally cry of "Waste Zero", will see that all Styrofoam collected from this event will be processed at Recology Oregon Material Recovery. 100% of the material collected will be diverted from the landfill. A $5-$15 donation would be appreciated for larger car or truck loads. These monies will go to green intitatives at the three schools. We will also include an educational display of how to recycle most of our household plastics.


In addition to Styrofoam, please collect your non-curbside plastics, both soft and hard. We will sort and delivery them to Farwest Fibers. For questions or details please contact Cindy Eldkrona (eldkrona@yahoo.com)