By Sasha Clarke, Environmental Education Coordinator

I am pleased to say this year has been marked by high energy and motivated students. With the support of teachers and students the SCLC has successfully managed the recycling programs in over five local schools. It always puts a smile on my face to see how excited students get when they find something recyclable in the trash bins. In a recent bike trip through the community I saw two of my third grade students walking down the side of the road with handfuls of aluminum cans. Upon asking what they were doing I received this response "prof, estamos buscando reciclaje" (Teacher, we are looking for recycling). This genuinely made me realize the effect our program is having outside of the classroom.

The student's enthusiasm has continued into material waste, the study of decomposition and finding out how long inorganic objects take to decompose. We have buried various items around each of the schools, and will be digging them up over the next few months. Every time I give a class the first question is always "Are we going to dig up the objects yet?". The students can't wait to see what has happened, even better as absolutely nothing will have happened with the plastic bottles or aluminum cans, in this way they can really see the importance of disposing of our solid waste in an environmentally conscious way.

Other exciting units have consisted of learning about trees and their importance, the ecological importance of frogs and toads, and ecosystems as a whole. Students work amazingly well together and have turned in some lovely projects on tree identification. Motivation is always helped by the promise of a quick game of soccer at the end of the school day, I think they just enjoy seeing their prof make a fool of herself.

The SCLC environmental education program has always been a core component of our mission since its founding in 1993 by Bertha Carter and Giovanna Holbrook who not only saw the Center as a Library, but also as a place to provide cultural exchanges between budding young naturalists and visiting researchers. We hope to continue these efforts at the SCLC by teaching today's youth about the natural world they live in and broadening their access to environmental resources.