Earth Day preview

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of articles concerning how St. Louis area kids can take part in the 2001 Earth Day activities. The first article appeared last month and additional articles will be included on Young Saint Louis.com’s April website. 

Nine-year-old Kristy Steed says she’s going to be a “clown elephant” in the upcoming Earth Day parade in April. 

She and her third-grade classmates have been making animal masks that they’ll wear in the “All Species” parade in Forest Park. The parade will be April 22, starting at 2 p.m. 

Several hundred kids are expected to take part in the one-hour parade. They have been spending the time leading to the parade in making their costumes. 

The animal mask-making is one fun part of a science class at Sherman School in the Shaw neighborhood. Teacher Ruby Grady said kids are studying endangered animal species. They’ve been to the St. Louis Zoo twice.

“We are studying animal adaptation, how they change in order to survive,” Grady said. She said the kids also studied how some animals became extinct because they didn’t adapt. 

Each kid in Ms. Grady’s class got to pick which animal they wanted to be in the parade. 

Kristy said, “I wanted to be a clown elephant because I’d like to have big ears.” The third grader admits that her real ears are quite small. 

But, eight-year-olds Jared Grant and Derrick Moses had a different idea on what type of animals they wanted to be. Both of them decided to be jaguars. Those definitely are not “clown” animals. 

Jared said, “I wanted to be something very rough. I definitely wanted to be a predator, rather than the prey.” Jaguars are big jungle cats. They eat other animals and don’t often get eaten by others. 

Derrick said his jaguar mask is going to “look very dangerous.” He showed how his mask will have red color around the mouth. “I’ll have blood dripping,” he said. 

Not all of the masks will represent big animals. 

Nine-year-old Aerial Tate is working on a butterfly mask to wear in the parade. Her mask will represent the entire butterfly, with wings and body.

“I picked the butterfly because I like to draw and paint them,” she said. 

This marks the first year these third graders will take part in the Earth Day parade. 

The mask-making at Sherman School was coordinated by Lloyd Harvey. He’s with a non-profit group called Art for Recycled Materials. That group has offices at the downtown City Museum, which is a favorite spot for kids. 

Harvey has been handling several different mask-making workshops for inner city kids. 

There is still time to enter and prepare for the “All-Species” parade. 

Karla Wilson is the Earth Day co-director. She said individuals and groups can get free parade preparation kits by calling the St. Louis Zoo at (314) 768-5466. 

In the kit, there’s a coupon for free recycled materials from Leftovers, Etc. to make their masks or costumes, Wilson said.

This is the 12th year for the kids parade. Wilson said the parade is very “kid friendly” because there are no motorized vehicles. The parade route starts at the World’s Fair Pavilion in Forest Park and goes through the St. Louis Zoo. 

The percussion instrument group called Joia will lead the kids on their parade route.