Marquette, MI - Dozens of youngsters from across Michigan created recycled holiday cards and homemade tea bags for gifts during the Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper's Eco-Christmas Workshop at the Peter White Public Library in Marquette.
The Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper (NMU EK) Student Team hosted the workshop Dec. 12, 2009 across from the children's library attracting several mothers from the Lower Peninsula and a teacher from Paradise in the eastern Upper Peninsula who plans to bring the idea into her classroom.
While finding ways to entertain and educate her children while her husband checked out job offers in Marquette, Tara Strong of downstate Grand Blanc brought her young daughter and baby son to the Upper Peninsula Children's Museum and then the Peter White children's library.
My husband is here interviewing for a residency position for after med school, said Strong. We just found out about the project from the librarian.
I love it. I love the recycling idea. We're also on a very limited budget and so I really like the idea of recycling and hand making things. I think it's great.
Strong said she and her daughter are having great fun.
I've been making crafts, said Anja Strong, 4. I made a tea bag and I have a honey bear stick
Joined by her brother & a friend, NMU EK Student Team member Ellen Lindblom, 18, said the end of the semester meant lots of scrap paper lying around the university.
School just ended and people have lost of papers left over that was cut into tiny pieces by NMU EK team members, said Lindblom, an NMU freshman You put it in the blender with a little bit of water and you blend it until it looks a little bit chunky like this.
You put it in a screen flatten it out - pat the water out, said Lindblom, while using a towel and iron to dry and flatten the multicolored wet paper as NMU EK Student Team Director Ben Scheelk, 21, of downstate Charlevoix used a small hair dryer to speed up the process.
We took a towel and pressed the water out to speed up the drying process a little bit, she said. Then flattened it out a little harder with an iron. I think it looks nice.
His hand atop the lid on a blender that whirred with red, blue, purple and white bits of paper, Mike Robinson, 21, a NMU senior geography major, from downstate Grosse Pointe, said the project is a good holiday craft.
We are taking some scrap paper from various places and construction paper and making it into some pulp in a blender with some water, said Robinson, a member of the NMU EK Student team.
Pressing the bits of soggy paper into a screen with borders, Negaunee High School junior Phil Lindblom, 16, said this is what they call extreme pulp.
I am taking this wet paper and putting it on these screens and pushing water out of it, said Lindbloom, whose sister is a member of the NMU EarthKeepers. I am making new paper which is pretty exciting.
Escanaba native Carole Beck, who teaches in 3rd-5th grade at the White Fish Township Community School in Paradise, said she'll use the NMU EarthKeeper's idea in her classrooms.
We're trying to figure out how we could create the screen there that would be the only thing that we would need extra, Beck said. We should be able to do that.
The student put out bowls with spearmint, raspberry leaves, juniper berries and rose hips that the youngsters used to make a green tea - a detoxifying beautiful beverage, said NMU EK Student Team Event Coordinator Amanda Emerson, 21, of Cary, Ill. We also have honey sticks to go along with the tea.
The herbs were donated by Catholic EarthKeeper Kyra Fillmore & the Marquette Food Co-op.
You just wrap those up herbs in an eco-friendly coffee filter and tie it with a string in a nice little bow and there you go, said Emerson, an NMU Senior Majoring in International Studies (emphasis on Latin America) & Earth Science (emphasis on rocks and minerals). There's your gift, a homemade card and homemade tea bags.
Protecting the earth and teaching the young to respect the planet are major goals of the EarthKeepers, said NMU EarthKeeper Leandra Dziesinski, 21, of Alpena, MI.
It's very important to care care of your things & the earth is absolutely our thing, it's where we're at, so we have to take care of it we only have one earth, said Dziesinski, an NMU senior graduating in May with a bachelor's degree in marketing. I think if we have a happy, safe and a clean place to live that just makes our population that much more happy.
In September, NMU EarthKeepers cleaned up hundreds of pounds of litter at the Upper Dead River Falls.
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Northern Michigan Universityby jaysoo6,807 views
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