Coolers are Cooler With Cups 2010
Cherry Tree Elementary School Green Club
Cherry Tree Green Club members show off their funding check for the Coolers are Cooler with Cups project. The Green Club student members were recognized at a school convocation on Friday, October 1, 2010 for writing and receiving a grant to purchase coolers and washable plastic cups for Cherry Tree, Smoky Row, Towne Meadow and Carmel elementary schools. Providing coolers with cups allows students to choose free water as a drink option at lunchtime, and is a simple, easy to implement project with little cost and a huge environmental impact.
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Carmel Green Teen youth board members Kristen Palamara, Nicki Hutchins, Lauren Gibson, and Emily Roberts, all Carmel High School students, made a surprise visit to Cherry Tree Elementary School to recognize and award an over-sized check to the students in the Green Club.
Students from the Cherry Tree Green Club shake the hands of Carmel-Clay School Board members at the October 25, 2010 school board meeting. The board congratulated the Green Club for receiving a Green Teen Grant and for their kindness in including other elementary students and schools in their project.
A student demonstrates how easy it is to use the new cooler and cups for self-serve free water during lunch. According to the cafeteria manager at Cherry Tree Elementary School, the school is now using two-thirds fewer disposable water bottles.
In addition to providing the coolers and cups for free lunchtime tap water, the Cherry Tree’s green club created a water bottle sculpture and signs to encourage their fellow students to drink tap water instead of purchasing it in disposable plastic bottles.
Want a further explanation of why we should all cut down on disposable water bottle use? Take 8 minutes and watch this fun and informative cartoon,
The Story of Bottled Water
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Students will have the opportunity to choose free tap water in cups during lunch. “We wanted to save the energy used in making and transporting the water bottles and get kids active in going green.” said Austin R., a 4th-grade member of the Cherry Tree Green Club.
Cherry Tree Green Club students delivered cooler and cups to Smoky Row, Towne Meadow and Carmel elementary schools. They are working with each of the schools’ student councils to promote the program through posters, daily announcements, and more.
Cherry Tree students enjoy drinking fresh tap water at lunchtime. Many have also indicated that they like the fact that it both tastes good and is free.
This sculpture, constructed by the students, contains 167 water bottles, which, (according to one website.) is the average number a person uses per year. The kids wrote water bottle facts on the raindrops, such as “CCS schools sold 198,000 water bottles in one year’s time; that’s about 1,100 bottles sold each school day!!”
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