Ann Martin - Baby-Sitters Club 057

Chapter 5.

The first meeting of the Save the Planet class is officially called to order," Stacey announced to the thirteen children sitting cross-legged on her living room floor.

"Yea!" Buddy Barrett led the applause. I knew we could count on him to be an enthusiastic student.

After calling roll, Stacey gestured to me and said, "Dawn will pass out the special badges we want you to wear during our classes." Stacey and I had spent an hour cutting out cardboard circles at her house. Then we used glitter ink to write the words KIDS CARE on them.

"These will be a constant reminder to ourselves arid to our parents," she told the kids, "that what we are doing is important." After Stacey and I finished pinning the badges on the kids, I stepped back up to the front of the group. All of a sudden I felt a little nervous. I'd never actually taught a class before. I looked down at my notebook, where Stacey and I had carefully plotted out every second of the class. "First, I want to ask you a question," I began. "Do you think our world is clean?" Becca Ramsey waved her hand frantically in the air.

Stacey grinned. "Becca?" Becca, who is eight and a half, stood up and said, very seriously, "Yes, except where there is dirt, like under our lawn or at the park." It was hard not to giggle at her reply but Stacey and I managed to keep a straight face. Then nine-year-old Bill Korman said, "It's clean when it rains and everything gets washed." Charlotte Johanssen, whose mother is a doctor, raised her hand. "But the world is not always clean. Sometimes the air gets dirty from the smoke that comes out of factories and cars." "That's right," I said. "Our world may look clean and shiny, like after a rainfall, but things float around in the air that make it very dirty. And it's not just dirt like the kind you find under your lawn. This dirt can come in all shapes and sizes." "Like trash on the side of the road," Stacey chimed in.

"Or it can appear in water," I added. "Have any of you ever seen a shiny film on the water in a creek?" Linny Papadakis nodded vigorously. "I have. And sometimes I've even seen this foam that looks like bubble bath floating on the top of it." Stacey and I exchanged concerned looks. "The shiny film is oil that shouldn't be there," I explained. "And the foam is probably soap coming from homes or factories. They're both bad for the water and the fish that try to live in the water. It's like poison to them." "Oh, no!" Becca Ramsey gasped in alarm.

"This dirt is called pollution," Stacey said. "Can everyone say it?" "Plushun!" Andrew Brewer called out.

"Po-lu-ton," Suzi Barrett said, giggling.

Stacey and I smiled at each other. Even if they couldn't pronounce the word, the kids seemed very enthusiastic about what could have been a boring subject.

"Pollution comes in all kinds of forms," I continued. "Sometimes it's invisible. Does anybody know what that means?" Vanessa raised her hand. "Invisible means you can't see it. Like ghosts." "Ghosts!" This set off a rumbling among the younger members of the group, especially Andrew, who is only four. He looked over his shoulder and muttered, "I don't like ghosts." I hurried to get them back on track. "This pollution isn't a ghost but it can be scary. It's scary because it hurts things." Stacey nodded. "It gets in the water we drink. It gets in the air we breathe and makes us cough. It even goes way up in the sky and tears a hole in a special layer of gas called ozone that circles the earth. The ozone protects us from the hot, hot rays of the sun." "You mean, we could get sunburned without it?" Hannie Papadakis asked, wide-eyed.

"That's right," I replied. "We could get sunburned, and so would everything on the planet. And if the ozone layer disappears, we'll just get hotter and hotter." "That's terrible," Vanessa Pike murmured.

"It is terrible," I agreed. "But this class is going to teach you ways to stop that from happening." "We're going to teach you ways to save the animals, the water, the air, and the ozone layer," Stacey said.

"And we're going to tell you what to do with the trash you find along the side of the road," I added.

"I know what to do with that," Nicky Pike said, rolling his eyes. "You throw it away." "That's one way to help clean up the earth," Stacey said. "But we've found an even better thing to do with that trash." I pointed to our first poster and read the title out loud. "Recycle." "Hey, I know what that means." Buddy hopped up from where he was sitting and joined Stacey and me at the front of the living room. "Recycling means reusing things." Then he turned to me and whispered, "Right?" "Right," I whispered back.

Stacey pointed to a drawing she'd made on the poster. It showed the earth covered in a huge mound of garbage. "If we just keep throwing things away, our garbage dumps will get so huge there won't be any room for us to move. The garbage could take over the planet." I held up a collage I had made of things that can be recycled. I'd cut pictures out of magazines and glued them on poster board. It wasn't as artistically designed as if Claudia had made if but I think it was okay. * "Some things can be used over and over again," I said, "like glass and aluminum cans and paper. So instead of throwing them away - what should we do?" All of the kids shouted, "Recycle them!" (They were getting into the shouting part of the class.) "Right," Stacey agreed. "Now, how many things can you name that are made of glass?" "Bottles!" Nicky Pike called out.

"Good," I said. "What else?" The kids shouted out their answers all at once. "Mirrors! TVs! Plates! Windows! Windshields! Light bulbs! Eyeglasses! Computer screens!" The list seemed endless.

"Did you know," Stacey began after everyone had quieted down, "we throw away twenty-eight billion bottles and jars each year?" "Is that a lot?" Andrew Brewer asked.

"It's more than you could ever count." I chuckled.

Vanessa raised her hand. "But where are we supposed to recycle our bottles?" Stacey and I exchanged looks. We only knew of one place and that was not nearby.

"Right now Stoneybrook has just one recycling center, down near the courthouse," I explained. "But it's kind of far for us to walk to. Your parents will have to drive you there." "What if they can't?" Suzi Barrett asked.

I paused. "That's a good question, Suzi. Stacey and I will have to work on that." I made a note in my book to find out why there weren't more recycling centers in Stoneybrook. Meanwhile Stacey explained our first project to the group.

"Okay, kids," she said. "Today we're going to dig a hole in my backyard and bury some - " "Treasures?" David Michael asked, excitedly.

Stacey laughed. "Some of the things we bury will turn out to be treasures. The other stuff won't. Follow me." The kids scrambled into the McGills' kitchen where Stacey and I had set our supplies on the kitchen counter.

"What do you see here?" Stacey asked the group.

Charlotte wrinkled her nose. "An apple core, one that's already turning brown." Stacey nodded. "What else?" "Some bunny food," Suzi Barrett said, pointing at a leaf of lettuce.

"That's correct," Stacey said, laughing. "And?" "An old cup," Bill Korman said.

"But that's not just any kind of cup," I said, joining the group in the kitchen. "That cup is made of Styrofoam." "That's the stuff that squeaks when you bite into it," Linny Papadakis pointed out.

Just thinking about squeaking Styrofoam sent shivers down my spine. "And what is this last item?" I asked.

"Garbage," Becca Ramsey said, holding up the wrapping from a box of cookies.

"That's right," I said. "This is plastic." "Now we're all going to go outside and bury these," Stacey said.

Melody Korman raised her hand. "But why?" "Because we're going to find out which items are biodegradable," I replied. Blank stares followed that announcement, so I quickly explained, "That means they'll dissolve back into the earth and become good garbage. The things that aren't biodegradable will just sit there." "So we're going to bury these four items," Stacey continued, "and then in a couple of weeks we'll dig them up and see which ones are still there." "All right, here's a shovel," Buddy Barrett cried, grabbing the gardening trowel lying on the kitchen counter. "I want to carry it." "No." Nicky Pike grabbed for it. "I want to." "Let me!" Karen Brewer hopped up and down, waving her hand in my face.