Batavia students building greenhouse from pop bottles
Two classes at Batavia High School are looking to turn your trash into their treasure.
They want 1,500 empty 2-liter soda and water bottles to build a greenhouse.
The work is a team effort among students from the school's Advanced Placement Environmental Science class and a class called "Developing Opportunities," in which students receive special instruction due to social, emotional and behavioral needs.
"They are trying to achieve a common goal, but from two angles," said science teacher Daniel Renz.
The idea of a greenhouse came about as Renz was looking for a project for his AP students.
Normally, students might write letters to politicians urging action on topics related to the environment. But Renz wanted something more hands-on to teach about recycling and repurposing objects. He learned about the greenhouse at a conference.
Meanwhile, Chris Payton, the "Developing Opportunities" teacher, had started a garden in the school courtyard. He uses it for instruction in biology, as well as to encourage students to develop responsibility.
It's also a place where his students can go for a break, rather than leaving school, when feeling overwhelmed or in need of time to unwind.
"It's a way to pull kids into coming every day," Payton said.
The garden teaches students how to work with others, how to plan a project and how to learn from challenges, such as when seedlings supplied by another school turned out to marigolds, not pepper plants as they were labeled.
The students have grown peppers, kale, chard, tomatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers and more in the garden's 4-by-8-foot beds.
But the students who plant and tend to the vegetables might not be the ones who get to eat the produce, because they aren't in school during the summer months when some of the bounty is ready.
So Payton wants to build a greenhouse, enabling students to start seedlings earlier.
To make it happen, the students need those 1,500 plastic bottles.
Students will remove the labels and cut the bottoms off the bottles. The bottles will lock together, and slender garden poles will be run through the stacks. The stacks will be attached side by side to a wooden frame, which will be anchored by posts set in concrete.
If you wish to donate:
• Bottles may be dropped off at the front office of the high school, 1201 W. Main St. If you have a child in a Batavia elementary school or Rotolo Middle School, let the office workers know what school you are from. The school that donates the most will get to name the greenhouse.
• They must be 2-liter bottles, preferably clear.
• Coca-Cola product bottles are not acceptable due to the indented shape.
• Rinse the inside of the bottles.
Renz joked that the next time Payton's students make salsa from the vegetables, they can share it with the Environmental Science class. But he also wants his students to come up with other ways of working with Payton's class.