News.bytes Extra, issue 559

Recycle Education Day Impacts Local Students in Barstow

 
Barstow BLM Interpretive Specialist Rose Beardshear leads a class of young learners in reacting to Recycling at the Desert Discovery Center.

On Thursday November 30, more than 300 local school children learned all about the hows and whys of recycling at the Bureau of Land Management’s Desert Discovery Center (DDC) in Barstow.  Organized by DDC Director Jane Laraman-Brockhurst, Barstow BLM Interpretive Specialist Rose Beardshear and City of Barstow Recycling Coordinator Belinda Barbour, the event brought together many of the DDC’s many volunteers and partners to make this event happen.  The Desert Discovery Center hosted two sessions of recycling education to four of the local elementary schools.  Partnership members from the Mojave Natural Preserve, Main Street Murals and SCA’s NLCS WildCorp Crew also helped staff the various education stations.

Students went through five different but related stations where the five ‘R’s of recycling were learned: recycle, reduce, reuse, react and rethink.  Various stations had students making a mural of the recycling sayings, watching a video on how recycling happens, learning a song about composting and reducing impacts in the world, taking a quiz on how long items take to break down in the environment and walking a path picking up items and then sorting them to learn what is actually recyclable. 

Students spent a half a day moving from one activity to another. Each session ended with everyone taking a pledge to recycle.
The Desert Discovery Center is supported by a partnership of the BLM, the National Park Service, Barstow Unified School District, the City of Barstow and Main Street Murals, among others.  The DDC is a 7,000 square foot facility surrounded by 12 acres of public land located in the heart of Barstow, California.  The mission of the DDC is to develop and implement a comprehensive formal and informal education center with programs focusing on the natural, cultural, and historic resources associated with the Mojave Desert.  The Center is open Tuesday thru Saturday 11:00 to 4:00 at 831 Barstow Road ,just three blocks north of Interstate 15.

Mayor Joe Gomez and Desert Discovery Center Director Jane Laraman-Brockhurst lead elementary school students in taking the Recycle Day pledge. 

Master Composter Coordinator, Don Woo, leads dedicated young people in a reason to reduce.

Volunteers Priscilla Ray-Blake & Pat Smith along with SCA WildCorp Crew member Lauren Sherman work with local students to make Recycling mobiles. 

- Tim Williamson, Wilderness Specialist, BLM Barstow Field Office (December 5, 2012)

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