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Recycling for birds: Students turn bottles to bird feeders
Dan Eakin/Staff Photo - McClure Elementary teacher Summer Carter and Sara Sopczynski of the McKinney Office of Environmental Stewardship help students fill their makeshift bird feeders Thursday. The McClure 'Green Team' reused plastic water bottles for the feeders.
By Dan Eakin, deakin@acnpapers.com
Second and third graders at McClure Elementary School learned Thursday afternoon how to make bird feeders from used plastic water bottles, proving that recycling can benefit both the environment and birds.
About 50 students, all members of the school's Green Team, also learned about birds.
Tiffany Champney, outreach coordinator for the Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary, began the program by showing the children displays of several Texas-native birds, such as the woodpecker, cardinal and blue jay. She also showed the children a caged ring-necked dove, which she said was from Europe or Asia. She also discussed birds that are endangered species.
They cut a hole in the lower portion of the bottle to allow for the placement of a plastic or wooden spoon. Another opening is created above the spoon to allow birdseed to fall from the bottle onto the spoon.
The students then filled the bird feeders with food and tied strings onto the bottles to be hung from a tree limb or other outdoors station.
They provided bottles for the event, but Fipps said that in order for them not to be exposed to potentially cutting themselves, helpers supplied the students with plastic water bottles that already had holes.
Summer Carter, a teacher at McClure Elementary, serves as coordinator for the Green Team, which meets after school about once a month. She said she got the idea to form a Green Team after she realized the importance of teaching children ways to help the environment.
"I have a passion for the environment," she said, "and we want to do everything we can to help it."
While some referred to the bird feeders made from plastic bottles as a form of recycling, she said a better word than recycling is re-using.
Fipps said that similar bird-feeder workshops have been conducted before and that several more are planned for the future.
"So far, we have offered the bird-feeder workshop three times and have received an overwhelming response," Fipps said. "We look forward to offering it at the McKinney libraries and to special groups throughout the winter months."
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