Giving Earth Day a good rap

Danette Goulet

CORONA DEL MAR -- Students donned colorful Earth Day 2000 T-shirts Friday

morning and gave their classmates at Harbor View Elementary School a few

rhythmical solutions to some of the planet’s pollution problems.

In a full school assembly that drew a crowd of a dozen parents, students

from two classrooms performed an alphabetical list of pollution solutions

followed by an Earth Day rap song.

“Turn up the volume, the time is now -- to save our earth, make a

difference somehow,” sang second- and third-grade students in Stephanie

Wallace’s class.

It was the refrain to a rap song performed by Linda Wawara’s fifth-grade

class detailing the dangers pollutants on the planet.

It was also the conclusion of a monthlong Earth Day science unit the

fifth-graders had been doing.

“We learned about trash and how the United States has the most and we

need to lower our percentage,” said 11-year-old Amanda Billing.

Students were also expected to act on their own advice -- at least on a

small scale. The children said they have been picking up trash around the

playground.

Other students chimed in about the dangers of pesticides and described

the practice of some innovative farmers who use ladybugs and wasps to eat

insects that are harmful to their crops.

Several children said the best part of the unit was doing all the

projects and experiments in their Earth Day packets.

Those projects included making bird feeders out of pine cones and

experiments about acid rain and oil spills, students said.

“We had water that we put motor oil in and we had to try 10 ways to get

it out -- it was really hard,” said 10-year-old Hayley Penan.

After the exciting unit, students were eager to share their newfound

knowledge of the environment.

Before singing their rap song about all they had learned, students used

the alphabet to get their message across.

“P” was for plastic rings that people should cut up so that animals don’t

get tangled in them. “V” was for vehicle pollution, so you should jog

instead of drive, they said. And “Y” was for Young -- “We need to teach

the young to take care of the earth,” they recited.