Earth Day: 40th Anniversary

This April 22nd in 2010 marked the 40th anniversary of Earth Day which was started by Mr. Gaylord Nelson - a US senator from Wisconsin. He died in 1995 I think but in his lifetime he created Earth Day, and brought into the US the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. Good work Mr. Nelson.

As you all know, I successfully finished a beautiful mural of the world map at the House of Culture here and a part of that project was a follow up project for Earth Day which would incorporate the map. Therefore this is what we did for Earth Day at the Benque House of Culture...

In our gallery space an exhibit was created and erected which included information about the creation of Earth Day; about clean air and water and what you can do to protect these elements; about endangered species of Belize; and about the R's of Earth Day and Environmentalism: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Replenish & Restore. There were invitations sent out to the principals of surrounding schools to select classes to come to a workshop on Earth Day. Three classes ended up confirming (which is a small number but made for a busy day still!). With the help of Miss Terra, Miss Miette and Miss Christa (two PCVs and an infiltrator) we welcomed each class (10am, 1pm and 3pm respectively) and showed the students to the gallery. They looked around, I explained the contents and gave them about 10 minutes to read the materials, study the information and get ready to be quizzed on the information!

Once they left the gallery, the class was split into two groups - half to the arts and crafts station and half to the trivia station. For trivia we split the group into two teams which gathered around seperate tables that were situated in front of the map. They were asked one round of questions about Earth Day and a second round of questions regarding regional geography - such as: show me on the (unlabeled) map where Bob Marley is from or name and locate the famous canal that bridges the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Answers for these questions for sometimes correct although someone seems to think Bob Marley was from Dangriga - a southern town in Belize; and I believe I heard the words "root canal" escape someone's mouth when trying to come up with the answer of "Panama canal".

After trivia the winning team got stickers then each kid had a piece of paper and a few minutes for a geography quiz! - the rules, name as many countries as you can in the time allotted and the person with the most gets a prize. The students were great at listing countries from Central and South America and the United States almost always made it on the list. Some students even listed European countries such as Italy and Hungary. There were also answers like, Arizona, Los Angeles, Paris, Miami, Las Vegas, Colorado, Texas, Dallas, Houston, Corozal, Orange Walk, Tokyo, Africa, Belmopan, New York, Cansas, Moscow, and San Ignacio. One young boy asked me before starting, "Miss, whats a country?" I couldn't tell if he was being a smart ass or actually needed clarification. One interesting thing to me though, was that I didn't really have a great answer.

What is a country?

In my opinion, its a political - rather than geographical - decision on which land mass belongs to whom. I could point to the differently colored spots on the map and say, "This is a country and this is a country..." but they're also used to seeing Belize with differently colored masses marked by lines. Those are called districts which all the kids knew the names too - but why are those not countries? Because. They're districts.

Anyway, I came to realize that the country is more of an idea backed by a government and national pride. And I don't have an easily formed opinion or answer for the kid who needs clarification.

At the arts station we had the kids painting and decorating rock to look like whatever their mind came up with. As example I had painted a ladybug rock with glued on ladybug eyes, a butterfly rock with pipe cleaner twirly antennae coming up, and a pink little piggy face. The kids were all of the equivalent of 4th-6th grades (Standard 4 and 5 here) and I thought painting rocks might be a little too easy for them - but they loved it!

Overall, we spent about 90 minutes with each class, had about 100+ kids total in through the one day and had a lot of fun teaching them and playing the educational and interactive games. Next year I think I'll have the exhibit ready and workshops for a week or at least a long weekend. It was a bummer not to give many more kids and classrooms the opportunity to participate and learn. But for those who came, they did learn and had a lot of fun.