{"id":47392,"date":"2019-05-02T14:13:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T22:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/planet-or-plastic-students-do-their-part-to-protect-oceans\/"},"modified":"2019-05-02T14:13:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T22:13:00","slug":"planet-or-plastic-students-do-their-part-to-protect-oceans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/planet-or-plastic-students-do-their-part-to-protect-oceans\/","title":{"rendered":"Planet or plastic? Students do their part to protect oceans"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of elementary students presented a choice for their peers on Thursday: planet or plastic?<\/p>\n

This school year, students at Sayéik Gastineau Elementary School and Thunder Mountain High School were part of the Ocean Guardians Schools <\/a>program<\/a>, meaning they did projects and spread the word about ways to protect oceans. At Sayéik Gastineau, for example, the students switched from using sporks at lunch to using real cutlery, and saved more than 28,000 plastic sporks from going to the landfill.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the students spearheading the Ocean Guardians program presented to many of the other students at the school about what they’ve learned in the program and what their classmates can do to be more responsible. For example, one student pointed out, many shampoo bottles are recyclable and making sure those end up in the recycling instead of the trash can make a difference. They encouraged students to ask themselves, “Is this really trash?” before throwing something away, to think about whether it can be recycled.<\/p>\n

[The last straw: Juneau group’s environmental mission starts with a beverage<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n

The students, who were all between third and fifth grade, wore outfits including a hammerhead shark suit, a dolphin suit and an orca hat. They performed a rendition of “Under the Sea” from “The Little Mermaid,” replacing the lyrics with their own.<\/p>\n

“Up on the shore trash surrounds, it piles up in mounds. Trash pick-up day, we’ll save the waves, under the sea,” the end of the chorus proclaimed.<\/p>\n