Community Corner

Kids Learn About Conservation By Playing With Trash

Mentor Public Library held a program for home-schooled children in which they learned about conservation and carbon footprints

The kids at had a dirty job on their hands Wednesday.

They used banana peels, milk cartons, dryer lint, old shoes and other pieces of trash to make an animal.

And at the tables where kids made their trash animals, librarian Barbara Vendeville left a list saying how long each piece of litter lasts.

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That way the craft served two purposes: it demonstrated to the kids the finite lifespan of species on this planet; and it also showed them how some of the litter they leave behind can last hundreds, thousands or even millions of years.

"I want them to be aware of what they can do to secure habitats and conserve resources," Vendeville said.

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Kevin Kayle, of the Ohio Department of Natural Resource's Fairport Fisheries Unit, helped reinforce Vendeville's points by telling the kids about Lake Erie fish species that have gone extinct like the Harelip Sucker and Blue Pike.

Wednesday's program is one of many that the library hosts for home-schooled children.

Vendeville said she picked the topic of conservation because it is one that interested her as a child.

"I grew up on a farm and was always curious about animals and lands," Vendeville said.

She ended the program by giving the kids some tips on how to be green: don't leave the refrigerator door open, turn lights off when you leave the room and take shorter showers.

"We did not inherit the earth from our ancestors. We're borrowing it from our children," she told the kids, quoting a Lakota Sioux proverb.


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