More than 1,000 fifth- and sixth-graders spent Tuesday and Wednesday at the Eco Fair at St. George Village Botanical Garden celebrating Earth Day with educational activities and environmental-themed games.
“The Eco Fair is an excellent way for the students to learn about the environment,” said Beverly Peele, a teacher at Claude O. Markoe Elementary School. “They will grow to be citizens of tomorrow with an awareness of our environment that they are learning about here today.”
Around 20 organizations, businesses, and agencies set up displays and dioramas in tents on the lawn and in the Great House. The St. Croix Environmental Association (SEA) and Waste Management Authority (WMA) sponsored the 17th Eco Fair for public and private school students.
Kids were pounding away with mallets and making a racket, smashing leaves of mother-in-law’s tongue to make string at the Department of Agriculture tent. Marilyn Chakroff was teaching the students about plant fiber and how it is used.
Olasse Davis, from the UVI Cooperative Extension Service, Veronica Gordon from Department of Agriculture, and ecological tour guide Ras Lumumba led students on nature hikes.
“The kids love the hikes,” Lumumba said. “They never think about the importance of plants until we tell them about it.”
Gordon, also known as the “Bush Lady,” got some chuckles out of the students when she told them how eating one seed from the sandbox tree quickly relieves constipation.
Don Bailey, a research specialist in UVI’s Aquaculture Program, said he has students learning by observing, touching, describing, smelling, and tasting. He caught talapia that he had in a large tank and had the students touch its teeth. He also had planters of herbs and lettuce, grown using the wastewater from the fish tank, that he had the students smell and taste.
“It is really important for us to keep the water clean for fish,” Eulalie Rivera student Dinisha Parris said as she took notes at Bailey’s station. “If they eat trash and get it in their large intestines they will die.”
Manny da Motta and Mike DiNapoli, owners of Solar Solutions, had a portable solar water heater displayed. The V.I. Energy Office had solar toys on display and information for teachers on grants. Waste Management had dioramas of a wastewater treatment facility and a compliant solid waste landfill. The St. Croix Animal Welfare Center put on the Positively Puppets Show on preserving coral reefs.
Waste Management also sponsored the third annual “Litter Stomp,” with kids chanting anti-litter slogans and stomping a mile and a half down Queen Mary Highway from the WMA office in Williams Delight to the garden. Dee Osinski, WMA environmental educator, led the 300 students from Good Hope School, Claude O. Markoe, Charles H. Emanuel, Ricardo Richards, Eulalie Rivera, and Lew Muckle elementary schools.
“The stomp was really fun,” said sixth-grader Raysbett Gantier. “ And it made me think about not throwing litter out the car window and on the ground.”
