Paper vs. plastic? Gateway 1st graders decorate bags to encourage environmental choice

This time each year, first grade teacher Kassandra Poliziani asks her students at Gateway School District’s Dr. Cleveland Steward Jr. Elementary to decorate brown paper bags.

But they don’t keep the colorful bags. Instead, they actually return them to two local stores to encourage shoppers to make environmentally sound choices.

As part of her Earth Day lesson, Poliziani wants to show students how they can make a difference in their community and school district, just by making small changes.

“I started this Earth Day community project in my first year teaching at Blairsville School District eight years ago,” Poliziani said. “And I was so excited to bring it to Gateway four years ago.”

In order to help promote the use of paper bags rather than plastic, the children decorate bags with environmental pictures the week of April 15th. Poliziani said the designs can pertain to Earth Day, recycling, helping the planet or fun Earth Day facts. This year, Giant Eagle in Monroeville donated 300 brown paper bags for the project.

“At Giant Eagle, we are committed to giving back to the communities we serve, and we are happy to support the Dr. Cleveland Stewart Jr. Elementary Earth Day project through the donation of paper bags,” said company spokesperson Jannah Jablonowski. “We encourage our neighbors to consider more sustainable options, whenever available, including choosing to use paper bags rather than single-use plastic bags at checkout.”

After students decorate the bags, Poliziani then returns them to Giant Eagle for shoppers to use.

She also personally purchases paper bags and donates those decorated bags to Wall Avenue Express in Pitcairn, where she says many of the students who live in Pitcairn visit daily.

“Both of these stores can then ask customers if they would like to use our decorated brown paper bags instead of plastic to help the environment and our planet,” Poliziani said.

Founded by peace activist John McConnell, Earth Day was first held on April 22, 1970.

This year’s Earth Day theme was “Planet vs. Plastic.”

“It’s a great opportunity to involve all types of science lessons, and I make it the ending project of my science unit during the month of April,” Poliziani concluded.