What do you do with $300 worth of used cans and bottles? If you’re a kindergartener at The Albany Academies, you use them to buy a tree.
As part of an annual program set up by kindergarten teacher Kristy Mahar, students at The Albany Academies were able to plant a magnolia tree on the front lawn of the school’s grounds in celebration of Earth Day, Tuesday, April 22, after collecting, as a class, an assortment of aluminum cans and glass and plastic bottles to be recycled.
According to 6-year-old Christian Abdo, I’m not sure how many cans we got but I know we got a lot of cans.
Abdo said that his favorite part of the experience was when the class told everybody how much money they had earned for the tree.
Mahar said she began the Earth Day program to teach her class about the importance of recycling in a worldly way three years ago, by encouraging the students to go out and collect cans, with their parents, throughout their neighborhoods. The children would then come back to Mahar with the cans and have her drop them off to be recycled for a cash rebate.
`This year, we’ve been collecting cans and bottles since September,` she said, `We ended the collection on April 16.`
Mahar said the total earned by can collections was $306.05 this year, and, in fact, the amount of money has been rising each year Mahar continues the collection program. The first year Mahar began the program, her kindergarten class earned $150. The following year, the class earned $260.
Christian’s mom, Susan Abdo, said she was amazed at what she learned by helping her son collect the cans, which she said were able to be deposited for a nickel a piece.
`It was a learning experience for me to read the labels,` she said. Like her son, Susan was unsure of exactly how many cans the Abdos collected for the tree, however, she did say, `We collected every can we could scarf up.`
Susan said that her and Christian did not collect cans and bottles from any neighbors, but mostly from relatives in their family. The containers were not limited to soda containers, but included juice and other drink containers.
There were no restrictions. The cans and bottles simply had to be recyclable.
`I think it was good for him to see how other things can create carbon dioxide,` said Susan.
The six students in Mahar’s class learned that the tree they would be purchasing with the profits from their cans would produce carbon dioxide.
According to Mahar, as the amount of money earned increases each year, the tree the class is able to purchase gets nicer. This year’s magnolia tree came from Maple Lane Nursery in Valatie.
Mahar said that while the nursery employees delivered the tree, and dug the hole for the tree, the children actually took part in planting the tree themselves.
`I helped plant [the tree],` said Christian, who said he got a little dirty when digging in the dirt.
Aside from carbon dioxide, Christian said that recycling can also turn other objects into new things. `Like, if you recycled metal bottles it could make a scooter,` he said.
As the children planted the tree, they sang to a radio playing the song, `What a Wonderful World,` to which Mahar said the children knew every word from learning it in class. Through the recycling program, Mahar tries to teach the children about global diversity and how to make the world a better place to live.
While Christian will not be collecting cans for Mahar’s class tree next year (he said he can’t because he will no longer be in kindergarten and will be in the first grade) he does plan to continue to recycle. “