[highland-conservancy]April 3rd Conservancy E-news

[highland-conservancy at hyrule.one-point.com]

Highland Conservancy E-News April 3, 2009
April is a busy month for the conservancy…
 
Earth Day: Saturday, April 19  Noon-4
Huron Valley’s Earth Day celebration will take place at Milford YMCA this year.  This will be a family centered festival with activities for children and lots to see and do.  The Highland Conservancy will again have a booth.  This year we plan to have critters for children to see and hold including two very friendly albino snakes.  Please mark your calendar to attend.
 
Community Garden – Plots now available
Come stake out your plot at Highland’s community garden on Saturday, April 18th.  From 9:00am till noon we will be preparing the community garden for this year’s planting.  This is a great way to grow fresh vegetables and fruit, eat healthy and save money.  A section of the garden will be set aside for community share but there will be lots of room for your family’s plot.  Bring your children, gloves and tools as we prepare the garden for spring planting.  Park in the Highland United Methodist Church lot, 680 W. Livingston Road and the garden is just southeast of the parking lot.  NOTE:  If you know of anyone willing to donate a dump truck to deliver the free mulch that was donated (or for more info), please call Katheryn Krupa 248-887-4643.  
 
Adopt-a-Road
Join us Saturday morning April 25 at 10am at Spring Mills Elementary.  We will provide gloves and orange vests.  We will clean up litter along Harvey Lake Road on both sides of the road to M-59.  Boy scouts and girl scouts can earn service hours if they would like to help.
 
Huron Valley School wins Green School Award
Oxbow Community School, an elementary school in Huron Valley, has won the honor of being a “green school” - an initiative sponsored by Oakland County and Oakland Schools to promote more ecological, earth friendly activities within our schools: www.oakgov.com/waste/green_school/this_year.html.  With earth day fast approaching, many people are realizing that being green goes far beyond recycling or turning out the lights.  Oxbow’s teachers have gone above and beyond to achieve this significant award.  Chris McAuliffe’s fifth grade class can honestly say they are “off the grid” and power their classroom using solar panels.  They even made solar ovens!  They have been creating miniature motorcycles made totally from junked VCR machines (above).  The school recycles the usual cell phones, printer cartridges, paper and magazines.  Oxbow’s art teacher is a master scavenger and goes to area restaurants to recycle their wine bottles, and collects huge volumes of egg cartons, cereal boxes and magazines to use in her art projects.  "Why use paper when you can paint the school’s ceiling tiles?  Students enjoy the novelty and it leaves a lasting legacy for future students to enjoy," she reported.  Finally Oxbow’s Lego team was the first elementary school to be invited to compete at Nationals as a result of their in depth research and understanding of ecological issues affecting climate change.  
Congratulations Oxbow! For a picture of the motorcycles, click on: 
http://highlandconservancy.typepad.com
 
Thank you to those who mailed in their yearly dues already and to those who made donations.  These are hard times for all of us so if you prefer, your sweat equity on the projects above is just as helpful to us.  Or join us at our monthly meeting, the first Tuesday of the month, 7pm at the Huron Valley Council of Arts building, 205 W. Livingston Road.  
 
Katheryn Krupa, Editor
www.highlandconservancy.org
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