Photograph by George Sakkestad
Argonaut Elementary student council members Kyle Karren and Andrew Bierach prepare to deliver plants to neighbors on Earth Day. The student council set up its own Earth Day celebration that involved everyone in the school.
Argonaut students exercise flower power on Earth Day
By Rebecca Ray
Four students from Argonaut Elementary School and their principal, Sue Brooks, knocked on the door of a home near the school and handed Ruth Wismar a petunia. "I don't have to give a donation?" Wismar asked.
No, Brooks and the children insisted; the plant was free.
The 35 or so Argonaut student council members visited various homes and gave neighbors petunias, snapdragons and marigolds that had been donated by Yamagami's Nursery in Cupertino for Earth Day on April 22. Just three days before, on Friday, the student council members and advisors decided to celebrate Earth Day and involve the whole student body.
The celebration included the school's first-ever Earth Day assembly, which all 575 students attended.
Fourth-grader and secretary Danielle Conway and fourth-grade representatives Laura Boden and Lindsey Skolnik, who at the assembly performed a dialogue about saving the earth, said they helped with the celebration because they wanted to feel like a part of the school.
The student council members delivered the 25 plants to neighbors after the assembly. They did this instead of planting the flowers at the school, third-grade teacher and student council advisor Kelly Kannberg said, because the campus was torn up by construction.
"I think it was a nice gesture on the part of the school because, as neighbors, we've had to tolerate some of the problems associated with construction," Ron Thibault said after third-grader and student council historian Nick Renda gave him a plant.
"But once [the construction is] done," Thibault added, "it'll be a beautiful school."
"It felt kind of good because you don't know what their reaction will be," said third-grader Arianna Paranzino, a representative. "It feels good to give somebody something on special occasions."
The assembly, fittingly, took place outside. It began with student council members using vivid imagery to illustrate the importance of caring for the earth.
Fifth-grader and student council president Andrew Bierach said that in 1987, Americans generated enough trash to fill a highway from Boston to Los Angeles one foot deep.
Fourth-grader and vice president Rebecca Amato explained that trees provide shelter, beautify neighborhoods and, with their changing leaves, help people to notice the different seasons. She added that trees provided shade so that people didn't have to run their air conditioners.
Amato also took items out of a trash bag and asked the other children to guess how long it took them to decompose. The items ranged from a tin can (80 to 100 years) to a fishing line (600 years).
"Would you like our earth to be covered with trash?" she asked the other students, to which they replied a resounding, "No!"
Fifth-grader Kelly Darchek, the treasurer, showed the audience the birdhouse she had made for a Girl Scout project. Darchek had hammered the wood together and painted it herself, attaching hinges to the door so that it would swing open and a screw to hold the door closed.
Third-grader Ashley Fetsch said her favorite part of the assembly was the song taught to everyone by Amy Stalcup, the K-2 music teacher. Stalcup played a song on the guitar to the tune of "Ram Sam Sam," but sang different lyrics, some which were: "A Pizza Hut, a Pizza Hut, a Kentucky Fried Chicken and a Pizza Hut ... Fast food, fast food, filling up our bodies for a little while. Containers and wrappers, filling garbage dumps mile after mile."
As the student council planned, everyone at the school got involved in Earth Day. Classes made cards to give the neighbors along with the plants, and students received plastic bags and gloves for picking up litter on campus.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
