SAN CLEMENTE : Students Look to Trees for Answers

Earth Day, said 13-year-old Neil Anderson on Wednesday, is about saving the planet.

“If we don’t, for me and all the kids today, we’ll be living in places where you can’t see two feet in front of you because of the smog,” said Neil, an eighth-grader at Shorecliffs Junior High School.

He was one of 300 pupils from San Clemente area schools who gathered at San Gorgonio Park to plant trees in honor of the 24th Earth Day and upcoming Arbor Day celebrations.

With the students watching, city workers planted 20 white alder and camphor box trees around the 23-acre park. The celebration was among several environmental activities at Las Palmas School, said Terry Burrows, a sixth-grade teacher.

“Our first-graders have planted a school garden with all natural plants,” Burrows said. “And our sixth-graders used word processors to type up all the plant labels. We have a lot of students interested in the environment.”

Linda Purrington, principal at Las Palmas School, said environmental issues have become “the cornerstone of the science curriculum.”

“We have devoted a whole quarter, approximately 10 weeks, to a schoolwide theme called environmental solutions,” Purrington said.

As a result, she said, “kids have become more environmentally conscious than adults are.”

Before the children left the tree-planting ceremony, Matt Handy, a third-grader at Ole Hanson School, said he thought Earth Day was more than just planting trees.

“We don’t want to live on an earth that’s all polluted,” he said. “We need to clean up the streams and things like that.”