Watch It: Seneca Valley Students Make Videos for ‘Recycle Bowl’

Sure, the Super Bowl doesn’t take place until Sunday, but Seneca Valley students have already declared a winner—and it’s the environment.

Students at Haine Middle School and Rowan Elementary reccently took part in the 2012 Keep America Beautiful Recycle Bowl.

They also engaged in a little friendly competition with each other when it came to which school could recycle the most items.

At Haine, teacher Allison Stebbins said her fifth and sixth grade purpose students would give up their study hall once a week to go through garbage bins in various classrooms and pull out the recyclable materials.

Throughout the four-week contest, which took place in October and November, the Haine students recycled more than 3,200 pounds of materials, Stebbins said.

“All those recyclables are no longer going to a land fill,” she said.

Led by teacher Mike Manipole and acting principal Nan Farmar, students at Rowan also stepped up their recycling efforts.

In addition, both schools made fun videos to promote their cause. The mini-movies were shown at a Cranberry Board of Supervisors meeting earlier in January.

In the Rowan video, “The Green Team” fights back against evil Litter Bugs who are trashing the school. At Haine, the students made promotional iMovies that aired during the school’s morning announcements and highlighted their recycling efforts.

Township officials in January recognized both schools for their participation in the Recycle Bowl and presented participating students with the Recycling Achievement Award.

Haine also still has a chance to win a prize in the national Recycle Bowl challenge. A winner from each state will receive $1,000 based on the most recycled material per person, per school.

The winning schools, which are expected to be announced in February, then will be entered into the national competition for a chance to win an additional $1,000 and $2,500 in store credit from Busch Systems to purchase recycling bins for their schools.

While close to 60 schools in the Pennsylvania area entered the contest, Stebbins believes Haine has a good chance at taking the state title.

“We’ve really worked hard and every time we recycled, I can honestly say we almost filled that Dumpster to capacity,” she said.  

In the meantime, Haine and Rowan are continuing their recycling ways.

Every two weeks until Earth Day in April, students in Haine’s classrooms will weigh recycled material they’ve collected. The classroom with the most recycled items will receive the coveted “Golden Trashcan”

At the end of the contest, the classroom that won the golden can the most times will win a class field trip to a yet undecided destination.

“We’re going to make it a nice trip,” Stebbins said.

Want to see the recycling videos for yourself? Click the above video to watch Haine promote Recycle Bowl 2013. Don’t forget to check back with Cranberry Patch later Friday for Rowan’s anti-littering flick.