Photo by Eunice Swanson
Isn’t that a beautiful collage? It was created by students and teachers at The Sage School, where I spent two days celebrating Earth Day last week. Each member of the school community created a cutout of their footprint, inscribed it with their best wishes for how to better treat the planet, and added it to a massive wall hanging celebrating Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling.
In addition to seeing this collage in the making, and learning about the school-wide Trash-Free Lunch Day, I spoke with students about my adventures in the field (Pre-K through grade 1), the writing process (Grades 2 through 4), and the science of TRACKING TRASH (Grades 5-8). For each presentation I had the honor of being introduced by a student; thank you Tom, Lexi and Jonah for your hard work and kind words.
The surprise of the visit came when I met Allie and Stephanie, sisters who happen to know my childhood hero, Mr. James Micarelli. Mic taught ninth grade biology back at Everett High School, and he inspired me. So much so that I dedicated TRACKING TRASH to him, which is why he comes up so often in my school visit talks. Imagine my delight when Allie introduced herself to me as Mr. Micarelli’s great-niece! I met Stephanie the next day and posing for this picture was a thrill for me. Thank you, girls.
I shared thoughts and ideas with so many writers and scientists and beekeepers and conservationists while I was at The Sage School; it was, to me, the perfect way to celebrate Earth Day. Many thanks to Eunice Swanson, who organized my visit and sent photographs, and to the staff and students who made this visit memorable … and who treated me to some new Sage essentials:
