Kassandra Poliziani started organizing school Earth Day projects before she began teaching at Gateway.
“This is my sixth year doing the project at Gateway and I previously started it at Blairsville school district,” Poliziani said.
The kindergarten teacher begins by picking up paper bags — which are donated by Giant Eagle in Monroeville — in early April. Then students at Dr. Cleveland Steward Jr. Elementary use crayons, colored pencils and markers to create fun, thoughtful pictures about Earth Day on the bags.
Poliziani then returns the paper bags to Giant Eagle, as well as Pitcarin’s Wall Avenue Express, so the stores can distribute them to customers. Patrons are asked if they want to choose the decorated, paper bags over plastic.
This year marked the 55th anniversary of Earth Day, which is celebrated each year on April 22. This year’s theme was “Our Power, Our Planet.”
Poliziani started her Earth Day project because she wanted her students to learn more about the planet and become more involved in their community.
“As Earth Day approached, I noticed just how much plastic I was using every time I went to the grocery store and realized that this was somewhere my students could easily make a difference through providing paper bags to customers,” she said. “I know I’ll continue this tradition my entire teaching career, and through this, we will help significantly reduce our plastic usage with each year that passes.”
The students also learned how they can help to make the planet a cleaner place and protect the environment.
When asked what he can do to help, kindergarten student Chase Beavin said, “Clean up the trash, turn off the lights and turn off the sink when I’m not using them.”
Kindergartener Niyo Yotamu answered, “Don’t litter. And don’t throw food or trash in the ocean.”
“What’s really amazing is the students can utilize their knowledge from science lessons and passion for art to make these paper bags more appealing, beautiful and have special meaning for everyone in their community,” Poliziani said. “And no matter their age, all students can know that they are contributing to making a real change in the world by helping our environment.”