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CHARMAINE: I think the first thing teachers would think is, “Oh my gosh, where does she find the time?”
We just found these bottles in the trash can and they’re going to put them in the bottle bin. Do you want to put those things in the bottle bin?
We’re actually here at Castle Heights Elementary School in Los Angeles, California, and today we’re having school beautification and an e-waste drive.
Only CRV goes in that bin because we can actually get money for it.
My name is Charmaine Colina. I teach second grade. I love it.
About seven years ago, I thought I liked what I did. It was always working with children. I worked with different entertainment companies in the marketing of children’s cartoons and children’s consumer products. But one day, as I was stuck in traffic on the 101, I was listening to a teacher who was being interviewed…
TEACHER: …and plastic is a really bad thing.
INTERVIEWER: I’m sure you’re really proud of them…
CHARMAINE: …who had taken her students to Cabrillo beach, and they were doing a beach cleanup and they were interviewing these children. And when I heard these children’s voices about – you know we’re cleaning up the beach…
YOUNG GIRL: “We’re picking up trash with our class today.”
OLDER GIRL: “Plastic bags are really bad for the sea animals because they think it’s food.”
BOY: “…or it could get wrapped around their neck…”
CHARMAINE: …because it hurts the animals when they eat the plastic bags, and we have to keep the water clean, it clicked to me. Here I am, on the 101, polluting the air, doing this crazy commute. I need to be doing what that teacher is doing. So, I got the ball rolling.
I left the entertainment industry, I became a teacher, and I thought the way to really make a difference – to get people involved with helping the environment – was through young people. Because adults, we’re a little bit stuck in our ways, and children have this wonderful way of making adults feel a little bit guilty about what they’re doing in a nice way. And so I think it gives people a reality check when their children are telling them, “Mommy, you should put that in the recycle bin.”
When I got to this school, I asked, “Do they have recycle bins?” No recycle bins. That was a shock to me, because I thought so much waste is generated at schools as far as paper, cardboard, things we do use day to day that can be recycled. So for a school to not have a recycling program in place, that was a surprise.
Then a year ago, we got the support of a new administration – very supportive of our environmental efforts – we became part of the blue bin recycling program for all schools in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). So that got the ball rolling.
CHARMAINE: This is a bicycle that has a blender attached to the back. And when I saw it, I thought, “We need to have that at our school.” Because that could really teach the kids about alternative energy. Not everything has to be coal burning electricity.
BOY: “What about solar power?”
CHARMAINE: “Solar power too! Let’s put in a little O.J. Ah, the yogurt with good bacteria for our bodies.
BOY: “Good bacteria?”
CHARMAINE: Yes! Good bacteria. Now, strawberries. Fiber, right? We all need fiber – we know why. Okay, I’ll put some in there.
BOY: “Because then if you don’t…then you…”
CHARMAINE: Well, yeah. We know why we need fiber! Okay.
Okay Sean, you might have to stand up. Blend, blend, blend!
I think the first thing teachers would think is, “Oh my gosh, where does she find the time?” It’s actually not that hard. Once you motivate the children, everything else falls in place. They actually are the energy that I feed off of. They come up with so many ideas. And if you just get a few parents, a bunch of kids, support from your administration, that’s key. So, teachers I would tell you, if you believe in it, you can make it happen, and if it’s important to the kids, they’ll make it happen.
OLDER BOY: “In other blenders, it doesn’t really blend up the ice. It kinda leaves it chunky. But in this one, since there is more power getting into it, it blends up the ice with everything else, so it makes a better smoothie.”
CHARMAINE: There was a group of children, on their own, and this has nothing to do with me, started a Green Team. Although they were my first graders two years before that, so maybe there was a little influence there. But when this group became third graders, they decided they didn’t like all the trash they saw all over the yard, and spontaneously organized themselves into what we now have as the Green Team.
OLDER BOY: “These are specifically for our environmental team here, it’s called the Green Team, there you go.”
CHARMAINE: You don’t have to be a treehugger to recycle. You don’t have to be a hippie. You don’t have to be “on the fringe” to actually do something good for the earth, and I think that’s what we’ve finally shown to our community here, is that every day, normal people, just in your life, you can actually help the earth by making some wise choices.
Well I always thought that, you know what am I going to do in my life to make a difference on this earth? When you see the destruction, when you watch the Discovery Channel, when you watch the news, when you see “An Inconvenient Truth,” you think, well, what can I really do about it? And I thought, “I’ve got twenty little people in here listening to me every day. And when I tell them – it’s even really telling them you should recycle – it’s showing them by example, and teaching them why, if you do this it’s good. I feel I’ve really done something with my life if I’ve passed that on.
Every child that I think learns about recycling or helping the earth, I think it’s hope for our planet. It’s hope for our society. It’s hope for the human race, is what it is.
KIDS: “Reduce, reuse, recycle. REPEAT! Reduce, reuse, recycle.
CHARMAINE: My name is Charmaine Colina, and iTurnedGreen by starting a recycling program and environmental group at my school.
See the episode, “Miss. Colina” at www.iturnedgreen.com. When you're there, grab the code to place the video on your website.
Copyright © 2009 Rivet Entertainment LLC
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