TRAVERSE CITY -- The white buckets seemed to be about half her size, but Annie Hessler managed to hoist them both to her shoulders. They still were too heavy. She shifted beneath their weight.
"Steve, will you get one of these?" she called out.
Steve Maas, a physical education teacher at The Children's House, turned and lifted one from Annie's hands.
"You might want to cover your nose," the second-grader advised. "It smells really bad."
Annie, 8, leaned over a pen full of what looked like black mulch and overturned one of the buckets. Sure enough, the air soon began to smell like garbage on a hot day, as carrots, banana peels, pickles and used paper towels fell on top of the heap.
It may be messy, but the waste piles won't end up in a landfill. Students at the private Montessori elementary school, across the street from Traverse City West Senior High in Garfield Township, this year began to compost leftover food for use in their gardens.
The lessons in environmentalism are part of a schoolwide effort to become more ecologically conscious, an initiative that gained recent traction when The Children's House was awarded state "green school" status.
Rapid City Elementary of Kalkaska Public Schools, Mancelona Elementary and Mancelona Middle School share the honor.
"We didn't necessarily have to change anything that we're already doing," said Michele Shane, head of school at The Children's House. "The children take ownership of these programs."
Gov. Jennifer Granholm in 2006 approved legislation establishing the "green" designation for schools that perform at least 10 environment-related activities, including launching recycling programs, updating energy systems and planting gardens.
Several of the schools boosted their recycling programs by collecting metal, batteries, cell phones and ink cartridges. A few downsized their garbage bins because they no longer produced as much trash.
Mancelona Middle School also recycles bottle caps, and students raised $100 for Michigan's state parks and forests, said Rachel Davis, who led the building's "green school" initiative.
Students in Rapid City held a poster contest for Earth Day and raised money to adopt a polar bear, Principal Melissa Heller said. The school hopes to become a community recycling collection center in the future.
"Our goal is to continue to build awareness for our children," Heller said. "This is the wave of the future, and we want them to learn."
The Children's House conducts nearly all parent communication electronically, and uses almost entirely recycled paper, Shane said.
About 50 pounds of food waste is generated each day for the compost pile, said Maas, the physical education teacher who leads the program. The heaps generate heat and steam as they decompose.
A weather station was installed in a classroom to monitor temperature, humidity levels and wind speed and direction. Students record data several times each day, with the hope that a wind turbine could power the school.
"It's amazing that we can do this," said Cara Ferguson, 11, a fifth-grader who helps monitor the station. "It would be a giant leap from what we were."
