Education

Riley students launch recycling efforts on Polar Bear Day

RIVERHEAD SCHOOL DISTRICT COURTESY PHOTO | Students in Lauren McDonald’s second grade class, Khang Nguyen (from left), Dominic Cederna, Tyler Sones and T'yonne Bradley, paint boxes green to use as recycling bins at Riley Avenue.

Please help save the planet and its polar bears. For the children.

More specifically, second-grade teacher Lauren McDonald’s class at Riley Avenue Elementary School.

The class kicked off International Polar Bear Day Monday with the launch of a school-wide recycling effort at the Calverton school.

“We are doing this project to help reduce our carbon footprint and to help save the polar bears,” Ms. McDonald said. “International Polar Bear Day is today..and we wanted to take action in an effort to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere.”

The students started the project by painting cardboard boxes green and distributing one to each classroom. They’re now asking students, teachers and staff to toss all excess paper into the boxes instead of the trash, school district officials said.

The students will circle the school once every Friday afternoon, collecting the paper and taking it to the high school’s recycling bin.

International Polar Bear Day is an effort to help raise awareness of the bears and their shrinking polar habitats due to the earth’s warming temperatures. People are asked to recognize the day by taking efforts to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.

Many scientists blame CO2 for the warming trend.

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