School’s Description
We are a Michigan Evergreen School, the highest status currently recognized, for our many ecological efforts. Our students are highly involved in recycling and creating awareness of the many ways we can help the earth and environment. We are a K-5 elementary school of over 500 students. The students participate in regular GREEN LUNCH days, and assist with the recycling of many things within the school, such as paper, ink cartridges, glue sticks, styrofoam lunch trays, empty glue sticks/ glue bottles, old cell phones, used crayons, plastic bottles and caps, Capri Sun juice bags, and Lunchable packaging.
Schools’s Mission
Our mission is to continuously learn and grow in the area of environmental awareness and to decrease our negative impact on the environment.
At Paint Creek Elementary, we actively pursue environmental awareness and education through a variety of ways. Our students know we are a Michigan Green (Evergreen) School, and they all take an active part in that status. Recycling is what we do best, through the collection of office paper, plastic bottles and caps, printer cartridges, newspapers and magazines, cellular phones, crayons,empty glue stick bottles, Lunchable containers, styrofoam trays, and Capri Sun juice bags. We conduct regular Green Lunch days, and try to buy only recycled or environmentally friendly supplies such as paper towel, hand soap and cleaners. Our teachers conduct teaching units on alternative energy, making solar cookers and electric cars. Our building is covered with signs reminding all to trun off the lights, and put the computers to “sleep” when not in use. Our grounds back up to some woods, where we have a boardwalk where we see many deer, turkeys and various other animals that we feed with leftover food. Each year we research endangered animals, and adopt one or two through the WWF. Earth Day is a big time for us, as we take the time to remind ourselves and others how important all of these efforts are! We hold recycling contests around Earth Day, and the winning class or grade level receives a tree seedling to take home and plant. We have a Eco-Kids Club that meets after school one day a week, and have now collected enough plastic bottle caps to create a beautiful mural using them. This past fall, we gave out a “green” shopping bag to each family to be used in lieu of plastic shopping bags. Our students are very passionate about this topic, and we foster that through these and other activities and efforts.
