Composting

Composting is important for the earth because the food that you compost doesn`t get thrown away. Instead, it decomposes into dirt. Here are some thing that can`t be composted: cooked food, meat, grains (such as bread and pastas), and foods with citrus (such as lemons and limes). Here are some foods that can be composted: apples, carrots, potatoes, pears, bananas, asparagus, and broccoli.

Try a cool online composting game here.

-by Nick, 3rd grade

Our first book swap

Our first book swap of the summer is coming up on Tuesday, July 13th. Here is how it will work.

Find some good books to swap. We will have a table for books that you are happy to give away. Another table will be for books to swap and return to the owner. If you pick a book that the owner wants back, you just need to bring it to the next swap and give it to the person who owns it.

Bring as many books as you want to swap. If you bring a lot, don’t forget a great reusable bag to carry them.

We will have some snacks to share and some lemonade, too. If you want to bring a snack, too, please feel free.

Our book swap will start at 7:00 p.m. on our deck. Please contact us for the address if you don't know where it is.

If you’re wondering how this is a “green” activity, it is because we’re trading or swapping books instead of buying more books. It helps re-use the book. Plus, it is always nice to share with a friend.

Hope to see you there. Please post a reply if you can come so we’re sure to have enough treats.

~Nick, grade 3

P.S. If it happens to rain, we will just move indoors.

And the winner is.....

Arctic Fox
Originally uploaded by alex ktz

The ARCTIC FOX!!! A great job was done by A.J., Megan, Brendan and Matthew who made displays, wrote blogs, and fought to choose the cutest pictures to capture the most votes! They all worked hard and picked terrific animals – arctic fox, lion, polar bear, and tiger. In the end, the arctic fox was chosen - likely because two breeds of arctic fox have only 230 adult animals combined. That’s what you call endangered!

The funds used to adopt the Arctic Fox from the World Wildlife Fund were raised as donations at our bag sale at Kroger last year. This means every dime was earned by the kids telling the story of Earth Watch and all that they hope to accomplish.

Many thanks to all of the adults at school who helped us collect the votes, especially in the media center. And, of course, thank you to the Green Committee, for encouraging the involvement of Earth Watch in the efforts to become a green school. All of us are excited to be a part of this.

Keep an eye out for a cute new arctic fox stuffed animal to join the school. We expect it to arrive soon.

Interested in buying one of the Earth Watch reusable bags or joining Earth Watch? Just let us know.

So, who won???

Have you been wondering which endangered animal won the adoption election? Well, so have we! We found out that our online poll did not work. What a bummer! So, we had to start over.

We want to thank Mrs. Swanson and Mrs. Clark for their help in the media center. They have been showing the classes our blogs and our displays and then taking the votes by hand. There are a few classes left and our team will be visiting those classes soon to get the final votes. We hope to tell you which animal won by Friday.

If you haven't voted in your classroom yet, check out the blog entries below and start figuring out which one you want to be our school's endangered animal.

More to come soon....

Vote for One of Us!

Arctic Fox

Arctic Fox
Originally uploaded by alex ktz

Lion



Polar Bear



Tiger

Arctic Fox

Arctic Fox
Originally uploaded by alex ktz

Hi! I'm A.J. and I believe you, the students of McGregor, should vote for the Arctic Fox. The reasons below show why I think so.

For starters, the Arctic Fox is not only losing land to people, but also to the red fox. The polar bear and red fox are eating the Arctic Fox. It's really sad because the red fox is actually the Arctic Fox's cousin. From the 1970s up until now, one type of the Arctic Fox has almost died out because of disease. Another type of the Arctic Fox has almost died out because their fur cost a lot during then and that made hunting for that Fox grow. The 2 types' population has been low for more than 90years. And there are only about 230 adults(breeding)of those two species put together left.

And those are the reasons why I believe you should vote for the small, cute and awesome Arctic Fox! Thanks for reading :)!

From,
A.J., the Earth Watch Talking Guy!

Vote for the Tiger!!

Hi, I'm Matt and I think you should vote the tiger for the school's adopted animal. Here's why.

You should vote for the tiger because it is one of the world's most endangerged animals. Tigers live in Southeast Asia. It's classified as endangered. Endangered means almost like the dinos. Almost gone. There are only 3,200 left in the wild. That's hardly any!

The tiger is endangered mostly because of habitat destruction. That would be like if someone came to your house and said "this is mine", and left you to find somewhere else to live.

That's why think you should vote the tiger. Thanks for reading.

From,
Matt (Earth Watch Founder)

The Awesome Polar Bear!

Hey, I'm Brendan and I strongly think that you should vote for the polar bear. The following reasons support my stand.

First of all, the polar bear's habitat is melting due to global warming, polar bears have fur coats to help them with the cold weather in the Arctic, but when it gets warm, their hunting ground (which is on ice) starts to melt and the polar bears get overheated, sad huh? When a polar bear gets overheated it usually dies. Another reason they die is due to oil and gas drilling because it harms their habitat. What's most sad of all is that most polar bears live in Northern Canada, but the Canadian government lets ANYONE hunt polar bears. :(

The reasons above show that we should adopt the polar bear. Thanks for reading my thoughts above. Please vote for polar bear!

Sincerely, Earth Watch Tech Dude ( Brendan)

It's Easy Being Green!

Did you know that some of the McGregor parents are working hard to get McGregor named a "green school"? This doesn't mean that the school has to be painted green, but that might be funny. It means that people in the school (grown-ups and kids) are working on making the school more "environmentally-friendly".

We were glad when the McGregor Green Committee asked Earth Watch to help. We promised to help with a few things.

1) Having a club for the environment. CHECK!
2) Helping out with Earth Day activities.
3) Adopting an endangered animal.

We have also helped with recycling and making compost for McGregor's new gardens.

You can help us, too. We want to know which endangered animal we should "adopt". We'll share info about our top 4 choices and ask for you to vote on these. Stay tuned for more info!

Taking care of the earth is cool!

Hi everyone,


A few years ago we started a group called McGregor Earth Watch for kids that wanted to help save the earth. In the first year, we were just 4 kids meeting and coming up with ways to encourage other kids to make changes at school and home. Last year, we got more families interested and we did fun activities together like touring a recycling facility, going to the Farmers' Market and having a book swap.

This year, we want to have as many kids (and their families) join us as we can. We want to use this blog to share our ideas for things you can do at home and at school to help the earth. We'll come up with things we can do together, too. Plus, we'll tell you about things that we've tried that you might like, too. Oh, and we're going to do some polls (this means voting) online so you can tell us how you feel.

If you've never visited a blog before, we think you'll like it. Come out to our blog often and you'll see new postings and ideas. The best part about a blog is that you can tell us what you think by commenting or replying. We want your ideas, too, so we hope you will comment.

Stay tuned because we have some fun things coming up for Earth Day!

Environmentally yours,

The Earth Watch Team (A.J., Brendan, Matt, and Megan)