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| Ventura Park Elementary third grader Tiki McCollum selects spinach seeds for his container garden as fourth grade teacher Rob Renler explains how to plant and care for the seeds. |
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| Kindergartener Mamed Guisara creates his own painted hat with mom Kadyrova’s help. |
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| A skeptical, but open-minded Pascal Shin waits his turn as Life Skills Assistant Linda Adams explains how worms are beneficial in soil to Ventura Park fifth grader Eduardo Tuxpan. Shin’s mom is a speech teacher at the school. |
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| Bradley Gipe doesn’t appear too sure that adding a scoop of soil and worms to a box of paper and vegetable scraps is really something he wants to take home, but Life Skills Assistant Linda Adams assures him the result will be rich potting soil that can be used in his garden at home. Gipe is in the second grade at Ventura Park Elementary. |
| MEMO PHOTO: TIM CURRAN |
Darlene Vinson
The Mid-County Memo
Last month, Ventura Park Elementary School students, parents, teachers and folks from throughout the Ventura Park neighborhood created worm bins to take home, made colorful hats of recycled newspaper, filled recycled cans with potting soil to create planters for vegetables and flowers, and watched a student-produced play about the life of a rain drop.
In the David Douglas School District at 145 S.E. 117th Ave., Ventura Park is a Merit Green School. The Oregon Green School Association recognizes schools that work to recycle, reduce waste, save energy and conserve water. Beginning in kindergarten, students at Ventura Park learn about recycling and simple ways to avoid creating garbage. Milk cartons are rinsed and placed upside down to drain so they can be recycled. Cafeteria food scraps go to worm bins to create soil for the plants students grow in the campus greenhouse.
Ventura Park earned green school status several years ago by conducting a waste audit and creating a plan to reduce waste at the school. According to Principal Susan Gerritz, the school then worked to achieve merit status, the second level of recognition that goes to schools that increase recycling efforts. Recently, with the aid of a Nature in the Neighborhoods grant, the school hosted a community Earth Day Celebration as part of its effort to achieve Premier Green School status — the highest level of recognition by the Oregon Green School Association. Premier schools must complete a community outreach program and maintain waste reduction activities and efforts previously established.
Gerritz said her school wants to “make folks aware of simple things they can do to avoid garbage. We want to keep people thinking.”
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