The Mt. Hood Green Scene (MHGS) challenged the Welches School’s sixth
grade class to write essays on the theme, “What nature teaches us about
recycling,” following a presentation earlier this year.

The students, who were raising money to attend Outdoor School, submitted
15 essays, with Grace Bliesner’s “What Nature Teaches Us About Recycling
and Sustainability” and Sam Butler’s “Recycling and Sustainability in Nature”
named as the co-winners, earning $500 toward the Outdoor School from the
MHGS and The Mountain Times.

“Our goal is to increase and promote recycling and sustainabilty awareness
and knowledge,” said Doug Saldivar, a member of the MHGS board of
directors. “Helping our children learn about sustainability is one of the most
important things we can do. After all, it will soon be their world.”

Bliesner, 11, wrote about “The Three R’s,” recycling, reusing and reducing,
while also using the water cycle as an example of recycling.

“When you really pay attention to it, it shows you how water recycles itself,”
she said.

Butler examined various cycles in nature, including geology, weather and
ecosystems, in his essay.

“I just looked up a bit of general information on the topic and wrote a rough
draft,” he said.

While the Mt. Hood Green Scene did not hold a recycling collection event this
year, it hopes to hold one next year.

Recycling and Sustainability in Nature
By Sam Butler

Nature is defined as "the phenomena of the physical world, including flora,
fauna, geography, and other features of Earth. There are examples of
recycling and sustainability in all of them.

To start, there is the Earth itself. The rock cycle is a process through which
igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rock, along with sediment and
magma, interact with and change into each other. This is an example of
recycling. Moreover, this cycle happens by itself, without outside intervention.

There is also weather. Water evaporates, forms into clouds, then falls back to
the ground as precipitation. Whether this precipitation is rain or snow or hail
depends on atmospheric conditions. Once the water, in whatever form, hits
the ground it slowly seeps in to rivers and streams, which run out into oceans
or lakes, where the water evaporates again. The water cycle is the means by
which water is recycled.

The ecosystem is very sustainable. Anything that dies in a working ecosystem
is used by other organisms. Nature recycles things.

How the ecosystem is sustainable begins with sunlight. Chlorophyll in plants
uses the energy of the sun to fuel the plant's growing process. As a byproduct
of the chemical reactions involved in this, oxygen is released, making the
atmosphere sustainable.

After the plant grows, some kind of herbivorous animal eats the plant. The
animal digests the plant to help it live. Then, the animal excretes those parts
of the plant it cannot use. This helps spread seeds. Also, the rest of the
excrement provides plants with helpful minerals. What goes around comes
around.

Eventually, the herbivorous animal is killed and eaten by a carnivorous animal
for food.

Carnivores feed on herbivores, which feed on plants, which feed on sunlight,
which is almost everlasting. When the carnivore dies, its carcass is useful to
decomposers, such as fungi. The fungi eat the organic matter on the carcass,
leaving only bones. After thousands of years, the bones transmute into coal.
Nature is made up of hundreds of recycling systems. The environment will
keep going until the sun swells so much the earth cannot function as normal,
in several billion years. Nature is almost complete sustainable.

What Nature Teaches us about Recycling and Sustainability
By Grace Bliesner

Nature is amazing! It works together to provide a habitat to plants and
animals, who provide oxygen and materials for us. And it provides a home to
us. But think, nature is doing all this stuff for us but what are we doing for it?
Some of us are trying to help the environment like the green scene and other
groups, who go around teaching people about the environment and how we
can help it sustain itself. Some of us recycle but don't fully understand how

much it helps, and some of us just throw our stuff away and don't realize how
it is hurting the place that we call home.

Almost everything in nature teaches us about recycling and sustainability. (the
ability to keep reproducing and sustain itself) Such as Plants, animals and the
water system.

RENEWABLE OR NONRENEWABLE

Some resources such as trees and water are renewable resources which
means they can be reproduced. Others like coal and oil are non renewable
which means they can't be reproduced or it takes billions of years to
reproduce them. Which leads us to the three R's, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.
When it comes to resources and trash the best thing to do is reduce the
amount you use so it doesn't take so much energy and materials in the first
place.

The next best thing to do it reuse the materials and resources you already
have. Keep filling your plastic water bottle up to reduce waste. Or even better
buy ONE metal one and use it again and again. If your family moves a lot
don't buy new boxes every time, reuse the ones you already have. Simple
things can make our home a better place.

The next and probably easiest thing to do is Recycle when you take your
recycling to a recycling plant. The people will make your recycling into new
things.

But since it takes energy to make the new things it is best to reduce and
reuse before you recycle.

Recycling helps nature sustain itself. But we have to help it. And we can by
using the 3R's and treating the environment like we treat family. And the
environment quietly tells us how to help.

THE WATER CYCLE

It may sound weird but the water cycle teaches us about recycling and
sustainability.

The water cycle is a big system that recycles and reuses water. The water
starts in lakes and ponds. It then evaporates, turning into condensation which
forms clouds.

Then as you know the clouds move around then drain forming precipitation
which

comes in the form of rain, snow, hail and dew. In other words nature recycles
water. But that doesn't mean we can't help it along the way by reducing the
amount of water we use. We can do this by turning the water off while you
brush your teeth or not taking such a long shower. Even simple everyday
things can help the environment.

TREES AND PLANTS

Did you know one large tree can make enough oxygen for four people! It's
true but some people figure the world's population of trees has so far
decreased by 40%. But they teach us about recycling too. Trees turn carbon
dioxide and other harmful gasses into oxygen for us to breathe. Then we
breathe out carbon dioxide and they turn it into oxygen it is a cycle. That
recycles. Just like the water system we can help.

So there are many ways we can help the environment sustain itself and we
should help.

Use the three R's and help save the place we call HOME.

SITES
www.Gogreenplus.org
www.green-inovations.asn.au
www.dictionary.com
www.pachumama.org