Students from the Student Environmental Action Coalition at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry can help clean up the community through two programs beginning in April.

SEAC teaches fifth-graders at a Syracuse school about protecting the environment and works with nearby businesses to revitalize an alley off of Marshall Street.

Elementary education

Members of SEAC partnered with the Frazer School in Syracuse to send 15 ESF students to teach fifth-graders about composting, recycling and the environment last Friday and this coming Friday.

“SEAC approached me a few months back because they really wanted to work with kids, especially kids that don’t have easy access to environmental education,” said Elizabeth Mix, the volunteer and service learning coordinator at ESF.

The group of fifth-graders comes from diverse backgrounds with many different languages, and they don’t have a recess outside during the school day, Mix said.

After teaching the fifth-graders about recycling, composting and discarding trash, the ESF students brought the children outside to pick up litter on their school grounds and separate the trash into three groups — recyclables, compostables and trash, Mix said.

Volunteers from SEAC are returning to the fifth-grade classrooms Friday to help students plant flower seeds in planters that will eventually be placed around the school. The students will also be given seed books to record their observations as the seeds grow, Mix said.

While most students were excited about cleaning up the school grounds, some were not thrilled about getting dirty and touching trash, said Hannah Gibbons, a senior environmental studies major and president of SEAC.

Gibbons said she hopes the students will take what they learned about recycling and the environment and apply it to their homes and school. Although the focus of the partnership was environmental education, she said many of the fifth-graders had other questions for the ESF students.

“It was interesting when we were talking to them in the classroom,” Gibbons said. “They were really curious about us being in college, and a lot of the questions they thought to ask were about college, not recycling.”

Gibbons said she believes fifth-graders are the perfect age for environmental education because they are the youngest age group that is also old enough to understand the consequences of their actions on the environment.

SEAC plans to continue its partnership with the Frazer School next year and bring more environmental programs to schoolchildren, Gibbons said.

“Even if a couple of them leave really inspired, that’s all I ask for,” Gibbons said.

Art in the alley

SEAC will clean up the alley between Varsity Pizza and Crouse Hospital on Sunday and install colored stones and cigarette-butt receptacles to encourage keeping a clean environment.

Andrew DiMezza, a senior biotechnology major and the community liaison for SEAC, said he and SEAC chose the alley behind Varsity Pizza, between Irving and South Crouse avenues, which is used mainly by hospital workers from Crouse Hospital. The business is owned by Jerry Dellas, who also owns Varsity Pizza and Faegan’s Café and Pub.

This will be the second time SEAC cleans the alley. SEAC held a cleanup event last semester and picked up trash, mostly cigarette butts in the alley. This time it will install two cigarette butt receptacles this Sunday to encourage people to stop littering in the alley. Dellas agreed to have a Varsity employee empty the receptacle once a week, DiMezza said.

The cigarette butts collected during cleanup events may be used to create a piece of art to reinforce the anti-littering message, which will be displayed in the alley. The group will also paint rocks and put them in the alley to brighten up the area, DiMezza said.

If there continues to be excess cigarette butt litter after the receptacles are installed, SEAC plans to step up its efforts by painting more rocks and displaying more artistic signs, DiMezza said.

Kelly Klingler, a senior conservation biology major who cleaned the alley as part of a class project, first brought the problems in the alley to SEAC’s attention.

Klingler and a group of friends picked up the cigarette butts from half of the alley and left the other half as it was to show people the effect littering has on the area.

The group’s work was met with mixed reactions, from a “thank you” sign in the window of an adjacent building and free pizza from Varsity to people throwing cigarette butts right where the group was cleaning, Klingler said.

Along with picking up trash, Klingler installed decorative rocks with flowers painted on them along the alley.

“I’m hoping that giving people an option will give them the opportunity to do something different,” Klingler said. “If given another option, I hope they’d choose not to litter the areas they’re constantly in.”

 

Published on April 14, 2010 at 12:00 pm