Another in Earth Day series

An Earth Day Grocery Bag project

The annual St. Louis Earth Day weekend isn't until late in April. But, local kids can take part in an Earth Day craft project at the Butterfly House, starting in March.

The Earth Day Grocery Bag Project will be on each of three Saturdays prior to the Earth Day Weekend in Forest Park. That weekend will be Saturday and Sunday, April 24-25.

The Butterfly House's grocery bag decoration project will be held on Saturdays, March 20, April 3 and April 17. Hours each day are 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Kids do their decoration in the classroom at the Butterfly House in Faust Park.

(Also, learn about upcoming spring and summer gardening projects. See sidebar below.)

Donna Dupske is the educational services manager at Butterfly House. She will lead the grocery bag project each Saturday.

She said the grocery bag decoration is a part of an effort to "get environmental awareness out into the community."

The project works this way:

Kids report to the Butterfly House just like they would for a regular Saturday craft day. Kids pay a regular $4 admission. Then, you get the supplies needed to decorate the grocery bags with "conservation-type" themes.

Ms. Dupske said kids can use decorating ideas for protection of animals, plants, air, water or soil.

You can make up your own designs. Or there will be a variety of Earth Day posters from which you can get ideas.

Craft days are held at the Butterfly House every first and third Saturday of a month. Other types of crafts include making bird feeders, beaded crafts and "insect" head bands.

The Butterfly House picks up blank grocery bags from area Schnucks and Dierberg stores. Then, after the kids decorate them, the bags are given back to the stores, where they will be used to sack customers' groceries.

In addition to the bags, the supplies include both paints and markers, Ms. Dupske said.

The grocery bag decoration is becoming a regular feature of world-wide Earth Day celebrations. The activities are coordinated on the internet.

This year will be the 11th year for the project on the internet. That makes it the oldest and largest internet educational activity.

Ms. Dupske said, in previous years, grocery bag decoration results were reported in such countries as Australia, Croatia, Mexico, Canada and Japan.

The project even has its own website at www.earthdaybags.org. The results of St. Louis area bag decoration will be on the website, Ms. Dupske said.

For more Butterfly House information, visit www.butterflyhouse.org.

For more complete information about the 2004 St. Louis Earth Day activities, visit the website at www.stlouisearthday.org.

To read YSL.com's February, 2004, Earth Day advance story, click here.

 

Another Earth Day activity: Gardening

The Butterfly House also is helping to plan gardening activities during the Earth Day period.

Does your school or kids organization have a gardening project? If so, tell your teachers or leaders about the two upcoming gardening conferences.

The first Outdoor Gardening Education sessions will be held Friday, March 12, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. This meeting is for teachers in Madison County, Ill. It will be held at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville.

There is a general Children's Gardening Conference to be held Monday, April 26, at the Missouri Botanical Garden. That session will be from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The conference is open to teachers and kids' group leaders from both Missouri and Illinois.