Local kids make art from trash in afterschool litter-acy program

To celebrate Earth Day and National Environmental Education Week, children at three different after-school programs in Silver Spring, two in the Long Branch community, are working on an environmental community art project to learn about the effects of litter in their neighborhoods.

For six weeks leading up to Earth Day, seventy-five children in three programs have been probing their feelings about litter, its impact on their community, and the local environment. Each after school program is creating a multi-medium, three dimensional art piece and a litter education poster that will be displayed publicly the week of April 15th to 22nd. The structure of the art piece is an item found dumped in the Long Branch Stream Valley.

The children then attach photographs they took of litter and litter they collected on a recent clean-up to create their master-pieces. The educational poster they make will reflect the process they took to create their art piece, what they learned about litter, how they feel about it, how it impacts their lives and those in their community.

The environmental community art project is sponsored by Extracurricular ETC., an environmental education business that teaches children about the wonders of nature, and human impact on it, through use of nature hikes. The project is also funded by Montgomery County through the Silver Spring Regional Center.

During National Environmental Education Week, April 15-23, the three afterschool programs will display their litter art pieces at the following locations:

• Long Branch Library. (Montgomery Housing Partnership's Greenwood afterschool program.)


• Fairland Library (Montgomery Housing Partnership's Great Hope Homes afterschool program.)


• Long Branch Community Center (Long Branch Community Center afterschool program.)

For more information about National Environmental Education Week, please visit www.eeweek.org.

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