Keep America Beautiful: Thinking Green in the Classroom

What is Keep America Beautiful?

If you’re old enough, you may remember a commercial depicting a Native American shedding a single tear over the treatment of our natural environment. That commercial was one of many advertisements endorsing green thinking, recycling, and environmental protection put out by the Keep America Beautiful campaign. That campaign is more relevant now than ever, and Keep America Beautiful, or KAB, is still challenging each American to do their part. KAB focuses on three areas of environmental cleanup that anyone can participate in:

1. Litter prevention
2. Recycling/reuse
3. Beautification

KAB and Education

KAB has several school outreach programs designed to instill a lasting impression on our students, stressing the importance of environmental respect and personal responsibility. Each of these programs focuses on getting kids involved in litter prevention, recycling, and beautification projects. They have grants, educational resources, and recycling competitions for schools. Sounds like an easy way to involve school children in the community and grow thoughtful environmentalists. Schools can join Recylemania, the Recycle Bowl, Waste in Place curriculum training, or the Clean Sweep U.S.A. (a website specifically geared for middle school children). Much of the environmental rhetoric so ingrained in the current twenty-something generation was a result of the strong campaigning and school outreach established by KAB. KAB has designed a great website to help teachers continue promoting their message.

KAB in the Classroom

The KAB homepage has several teacher resources including a kids' zone, curriculum assistance, and volunteer opportunities. I recommend using the homepage as a way to connect with KAB affiliates and grant possibilities. Schools in underserved areas could potentially benefit from the beautification projects associated with KAB. They could obtain a grant, have an affiliate help rally community support, get a corporate sponsor for their school and then get digging. School beautification is a wonderful way to improve the appearance of school grounds while building school pride. When students participate in school beautification, they are more likely to maintain and respect their environment. Another idea is to plant a cutting garden and sell the flowers to help pay for camp or class trips. Or, build a vegetable garden as a learning tool and way to beautify the grounds. Use the fruits or vegetables from a class garden to provide healthy classroom snacks.

Keep America Beautiful without KAB

While KAB does provide many wonderful programs and inspires youths to get involved in sound environmental practices, it may not be for everyone. Here are some fun and easy ways to incorporate recycling, reuse, litter prevention, and beautification into your classroom.

• Start an art collective. At the end (or beginning) of every quarter have teachers, parents, and administrators clean out their closets, garages, and desks. They can donate any unwanted or unused art, stationery, or office supplies to the school’s art teacher for use in assemblage or collage art. Explain to your class that using unwanted objects is a great way to get art supplies, and that that is a way they can create art, save money, and help the environment. Collect cans and bottles for camp. 
• Many schools send their 5^th and 6^th graders to science camp every year but not everyone can afford the expense. Have 5^th and 6^th graders take turns greeting parents every Friday prior to school, have them collect and bag donated bottles and cans which can be turned in for money to help families pay for camp. 
• Establish a community clean-up with every field trip. Every time your class takes a field trip (anywhere) explain that it is extremely important to leave a place (any place) in better condition than when you arrived. Have everyone pick up 2-5 pieces of trash on every field trip. Document how much trash you collected after each trip, make a graph to display the data, and at the end of the year show your class the impact they made on reducing litter in their community.

• Plant a garden. Even if it’s a small herb garden in the window sill, it is still beautiful. Taking class time to go outside to plant something is a way to make the school more beautiful and reinforce the importance of respecting our Earth. You can choose to plant bulbs; they grow fast. As they grow, children can use unifix cubes to take and document weekly plant measurements. Watch the garden change throughout the year. Expand on this by assigning your class to write a story from the point of view of the plant that was planted in the class garden. Keeping America Beautiful inspires a multitude of lesson ideas, while simultaneously building environmental awareness.