Valentine's Day recycled-card-making

At our most recent Environmental Club meeting on Friday, February 12, we made recycled Valentine's Day cards using reusable materials. Here are some pictures of us making them:

For some Valentine's Day card material ideas, see our previous posts on the subject: Part 1 & Part 2. Hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day!

Bulletin Green Tip #4: Create recycled Valentine's Day cards Part 2

Here are some more ideas and information to add to Bulletin Green Tip #4: Create recycled Valentine's Day cards.

Patricia, one of our club's co-presidents has some additional card ideas:

"I just folded a piece of scratch paper in half then glued it together--really simple. I chose to use music notes for the background (because my dad had extra music that he was just going to toss out), but you can use just about anything--a catchy magazine pictures, stickers, postcards, etc. Use the old school newspapers to cut out words from. On the most recent issue, the page with the review of "Lovely Bones" says "hope" once and "love" twice."



For this Friday's meeting, please bring some reused materials for making valentines.

This can include:
- scratch paper
- construction paper
- scissors
- glue/tape
- magazines
- newspapers
- stickers you have around your house (don't buy new ones since we're trying to reuse)
- old movie tickets, receipts, or anything you think might be interesting to reuse as a valentine
- markers, colored pencils, stencils
- postcards
- old binder paper that has writing on one side
- old greetings cards...sometimes you can rip off the front cover and use the back of the front cover to write
- used tissue paper, wrapping paper, ribbons
- tattered and unreadable books
- old photographs
- old notebook covers
- drawings you or your siblings or family have made

See Part 1 of this tip for more ideas.

If you have more ideas, please send them to us at avhsenvironmental@yahoo.com or post your own post about them!

Melissa
Environmental Club secretary

HELP! Garden Project Needs Your Helping Hands - Let's Get Muddy!

A message from Science Specialist Mikki Conley at Mohr Elementary School:

Our top soil has arrived and we need some help getting it from the parking lot to the garden areas. If you can help out we will be working from 9:30 - 12:00 (12:30 if needed) on this coming Saturday, Feb 6th. Please bring a shovel, rake and a wheel barrow if you have one (we only have 2). Some volunteers have offered fertilizer which would be great to have on Sat. as well. If anyone has a small rototiller we could fire that up as well and get as much done as possible.
I am also looking for an expert on a drip irrigation system. It is currently in place but many pieces of the line are broken or missing. If you have special knowledge of this type of system and can help we would love to hear from you.....Thanks to those that offered more help on our last work day. I hope many of you can make it this coming Sat. Sorry for the last minute notice but we had to make sure the soil was in fact being delivered this week.

We hope to see you on Saturday!

Healthy foods challenge

Our newest club challenge/goal is to eat healthier foods and be aware of what we are putting into our bodies.

Some tips:
- If you want, keep a food journal for a day or a week or for all two weeks before we meet again and write down any ingredients you've never heard of.

- Try to eat food that includes ingredients you know are wholesome, which is easiest if you eat things that don't come in packaging.

- Shop the perimeter of the store to find real food, rather than packaged food.

- Try to eat organically or locally--shop in the organic section of the grocery store or go to the Farmer's Market Saturday morning.

- Read ingredients labels and avoid the following: hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners or preservatives, bleached or bromated flour, any ingredients that you aren't familiar with and/or can't pronounce.

- Eat mostly vegetables, fruits and whole grains.

- Avoid refined sugars and candy. (How and Why)

- Enjoy one meatless day during the next two weeks to reduce your meat consumption and your environmental footprint. (MeatlessMonday.com)

- Don't restrict yourself too much. Choose one thing to start with, like avoiding high fructose corn syrup. Then slowly add more things to avoid/be aware of until you are eating mostly healthy, wholesome, nutritious foods. Otherwise, you'll burn out on the whole challenge by realizing how difficult it is to avoid all of the bad foods. Start small.

Try to keep this in mind for the next two weeks so we can have a discussion about the challenges we've faced at our next meeting on February 12.

ACE: Alliance for Climate Education

As you may be aware, our club will be participating in an event presented by ACE (Alliance for Climate Education) . Our club will be creating a set of questions or ideas for classroom discussions that the science classes can use after seeing the presentation in May. We will see the presentation in February on the 18th, so we will have an idea of what kinds of questions would be good to ask.

We also received a packet of background concepts, comprehension questions and terms. It will be very useful in helping us think of questions to create for the science classes. I can scan the packet and email it to you all. I think we should all have a copy by February 18 so we can have some background knowledge before watching the presentation.

To get a better sense of the presentation, here are some of the terms and questions listed:
- greenhouse gas
- greenhouse effect
- human-caused greenhouse effect
- fossil fuel
- atmospheric concentration
- emissions
- carbon footprint
- What does the ozone layer have to do with global warming?
- Name four of the main natural greenhouse gasses.
- Where do fossil fuels come from and how are they created?

From their website:

"ACE performs 45-60 minute interactive assembly presentations for high school
students that explain global climate change and its effect on our planet, while
offering solutions. Our program is scientifically based, interactive and
energizing - and we present it at no cost to schools."

I encourage you to look through the organization's website at http://www.acespace.org/. There are ways to "take action" and learn more about climate change. They even have a blog! I told you guys blogs are cool :-)

Volunteering at the Alviso Adobe

If you've never been to the Alviso Adobe Community Park, you're missing out on a real nature opportunity! Located on the site of the old Meadowlark Dairy (where the actual dairy itself was located, not the drive-thru) and the restored Alviso Adobe building, this interpretive nature center is run by the City of Pleasanton's naturalist, Eric Nicholas. For more information about the park, visit the website here.

Eric Nicholas puts on day classes and presentations throughout the year, as well as present to elementary schools about the Ohlone Indians and the natural world. Most events at the Alviso cost money, somewhere around $10 each depending on the event. They're interesting and full of information about nature and history.

To find out more about activities offered at the park, check out the Winter/Spring 2010 Activities Guide. You should have receieved a copy in the mail, but if not, there's a digital copy found here. Hit Ctrl + F to search "Eric Nicholas." You can search through the classes he offers. Two that I am attending are "Prehistoric Art" on February 20 and "Tools from the Ancient World" on March 27. There's a registration page at the end of the guide that you can print, fill out and turn in with your fee to the Parks and Rec department. Additional information can be found in the guide. While many of the opportunities at the park cost money, there's one that certainly doesn't: volunteering! There's always opportunities to garden or help Eric with something for a class, etc. For example:

Garden Chores
All ages
Come up to the Alviso Adobe Community Park and lend a helping hand. It’s a new park, with new plants, and that means new chores. Be a steward of the land as we plant, water and weed the garden. Native plants help native animals find food and shelter, so stop by and sift the soil through your fingers . . . it’ll be good for your soul. Please call (925) 931-3483 to book a time to volunteer.
Saturdays Weekly, Year-round 10:00-11:00am Free!
Alviso Adobe Community Park Instructor: Eric Nicholas

And if you need service hours or want to help in other ways, you can email volunteers@museumonmain.org and let them know you're interested in helping out at the Alviso Adobe.

I was thinking it would be a great club project to plan a Saturday to go up there and volunteer in the garden. I will arrange with Eric when that would be best. Please email me if you're interested in attending so I can let him know how many people to plan for. Also let me know which Saturdays in the coming weeks you would not be able to attend. We would be volunteering from 10-11 A.M.

For more about the park and its events, check out these links:

- Alviso Adobe Community Park (Wikipedia)

- Autumn leaves and graveyard stories (a post from my blog in which I mention an activity I participated in at the park)

- Native plant uses class (a detailed account of a class I attended at the park)

- Observing Ridge Runners (a post about the summer camp Eric Nicholas runs and for which I wrote an article)

A historic dairy display inside the recreated dairy building.

A nature display of skins and tools that may be used during a presentation about the Ohlone Indians.

A feather and ink calligraphy activity at the grand opening of the Alviso Adobe Community Park on October 24, 2008. (Pictured on right: Kelsey, an 8th grader at HPMS. She will probably join E-Club next year as a freshman. Check out her animal blog here.)

Bulletin Green Tip #4: Create recycled Valentine's Day cards

This Valentine's Day, show your love for the Earth while showing your love for friends and family: create a Valentine's Day card of recycled or reused materials or make your own to avoid purchasing a wasteful card from the store.

Whenever we purchase something that can otherwise be hand-made, we tell corporations that we support what they're doing and we increase demand for those products, when we otherwise could be decreasing our reliance on the corporate world. It increases the amount of trees cut down to make cards, the amount of plastic used to laminate those cards, quantities of ink used, transportation and fuel usage, and many other things that can be damaging to the environment in such a large-scale operation. Don't you wonder how many cards go unused and unpurchased every year? There are so many cards being produced for Hallmark, Walgreens, Walmart, Target--there's no way they're all used. Most of them are not recyclable.

Nice Hallmark cards can show someone that you care enough to spend money for a card and can seem like a better gesture than making a card yourself. It's become part of our culture to associate spending with appreciation or how much you care, and that's often not the case considering it's much easier to buy a card and sign it than you for you to come up with an idea, create a card, and write your own thoughts.

Sometimes, of course, it may not be appropriate to make a card, especially when it's for a professional or business reason. However, Valentine's Day is a time to show others how much you appreciate, care for, and love them. Creating a card is a great way to show that you care enough to take the time to make something special for them.

Even if you don't use recycled materials, you are at least reducing the demand (however slightly) for more unnecessary cards to be produced. You may be reducing the amount of gasoline burned to get the finished product to your Valentine (if you reuse, especially if it's something like a local paper you're reusing). Plus, decorating a card is a lot more fun than simply signing your name!

Some materials you could use to make your card:

- Newspaper/magazine: Find an article or picture in your used paper or magazine that relates to something your Valentine is interested in and use it as a decorative aspect of your card. Or, create a collage of pictures and words--you could even write your message this way. You would have otherwise just recycled the paper or magazine, so you might as well give it a second life as a Valentine!

- Used tissue paper, wrapping paper, and other gift wrap items, like bows: They've already been used for one purpose, so now use them again--plus, they're colorful!

- Torn, worn, or otherwise unreadable old books: This makes for a unique, interesting, readable Valentine card. If you have a book that's literally falling apart at the bindings, take it apart and find some interesting passages in the book to use as a background for your card. Supplement with construction paper for structure and color.

- Draw a picture: Even if your artistic skills are negligible, drawing a picture says a lot about how much you appreciate someone.

This website has some more great ideas for recycled Valentine's Day cards, along with design ideas. If you have any suggestions, feel free to post a comment including your idea. At our next meeting (February 12), we will make some recycled Valentine's Day cards, so bring in some materials to do so.