My daughter brought home instructions for the last day of school field trip. Plans have been made for a combo park-bowling outing. Since there are several classrooms joining in on this field trip, groups will be rotating between the park and the bowling alley. During the "park" time, kids will be having fun playing, enjoying the out-of-doors and having lunch (that they pack and bring from home).
Let me preface the kicker of the story by reminding you that the elementary school in which my children attend has achieved the Michigan Green School status three years and running. Now back to the story...
The important reminders that came home regarding the field trip include this: children need to bring their own entirely disposable lunch. Yes, entirely disposable. But we are a Michigan Green School and we encourage recycling and waste reduction. We gave out hand-made reusable fabric snack bags to each and every student on Earth Day. If we can GET the lunches TO the location, why is it that we then cannot get those same containers BACK to where we started? If anything, the times that our students are out of the building are precisely the times to showcase the fact that we are a designated Michigan Green School and we care about our environment. Instead, we are encouraging some 100 students to needlessly dispose of garbage at a city park when we could have encouraged reusable containers and left little trace of ourselves at that park.
By encouraging a disposable lunch for the field trip, we have just taught our children that when the going gets tough, it's okay to throw it away.
Being a Michigan Green School doesn't mean that you are such only when it's convenient. At least it shouldn't mean that. And, I do not believe that is the premise of the institution. Instead, the Michigan Green School program is about building a foundation of understanding and apathy for the world around us. It's about learning to appreciate and respect our environment. It's about being a leader in the conservation of our natural resources and an environmental superhero.
Let's ask ourselves this...are we green only when it's convenient or are we green because that's what we value, despite a little extra effort?
The green committe at my children's elementary school plans to tackle the issue of disposable lunches on field trips when school resumes in September.