Students create art from discarded plastic Posted by Joan Pringle | May 09, 2012 | 534 views

Island View Elementary School students worked recently to create a piece of art from discarded plastic caps and lids in the theme of the popular Dr. Seuss book “The Lorax” as part of a week-long Earth Day celebration.

A team of volunteers led the students as each one used hand drills to attach plastic caps to a 16-foot-by-4-foot mural.

“The mural brings many themes to the school — it commemorates the school’s commitment to meal-time recycling, a reminder on how plastics like caps, bags and straws can harm the marine environment, how we all can make a difference by applying the 3 Rs, reduce, reuse, recycle, to our daily lives, and conducting frequent community trash clean-ups,” said troop leader Rebecca Spurling, who helped coordinate the project.

Wrapping the theme of the mural into the story of “The Lorax” is the icing on the cake, Spurling said. The classic book teaches people to protect Mother Earth.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not,” the book says.

Girl Scout Troop 42328 started the plastic cap collection campaign in January, building “Sheldon the Snail,” the first mural that carried the message of reduce, reuse, recycle. A second butterfly mural was created at the Girl Scouts’ World Thinking Day when the girls taught others about the harm caused by plastics accumulating in the marine environment.

The troop started Island View’s own plastic cap collection campaign and designed the Lorax mural for the students to attach caps during the week leading up to Earth Day on Sunday, April 22.

As part of the project, a weekly drawing for “The Lorax” movie tickets encouraged students to pick up trash and complete a survey.

In addition to the connection to Earth Day, Dr. Seuss is the theme used in the annual campaign for the Read Across America program that encourages students to read, Spurling said. Students at Island View just recently concluded the reading campaign in early April.

The plastic cap project was funded by a grant from the Skagit Marine Resource Committee along with donations from Frontier Industries, Ace Hardware, Read Me A Story, Watermark Book Co. and others from the community.