OKC Beautiful Teaching Students to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

By Melissa Maynarich, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Don't be surprised if your kids come home from school eager to recycle those plastic bottles and aluminum cans. That's because many Oklahoma City kids are learning how to keep Oklahoma City beautiful.

The OKC Beautiful organization is traveling around to schools to teach children how to respect and care for the earth through the education program �Mother Earth.� Tuesday they were at Prairie Queen Elementary.

In front of a 4th grade audience, actors taught kids about the environment by focusing on the effects of littering in the community.

"I see all kinds of newspapers and bottles and everything all over the road where people throw 'em," said 9-year-old Jesus Meraz.

Instead of throwing recyclables away, students tossed them in the bin during the interactive play.

"I think it's very important for them to learn at an early age how to take care of the earth and how to recycle," said 4th grade teacher Shannon Elwell.

OKC Beautiful Inc. is visiting a total of 20 schools this year to pass along the message and provide teachers with their own recycle bin full of environmental curriculum to use throughout the year. With the soil and sand, they'll build a landfill.

"The students bring in litter, and they put it in there. And then they leave it for a couple months," said Nicki Largent with OKC Beautiful.

Then the students will check on the decomposition of the trash. An aquifer in a cup will teach them about water waste and there's a lesson about graffiti, so that when they see tagging in the metro, they'll understand its civic cost.

Students will perform one hands-on activity each month, provided to teachers for free by OKC Beautiful.

Towards the end of the year, all 20 schools will go into the community for the "Litter Blitz," to pick up trash off campus.