Going Green : Earth Week Activities Find Southland Children Are Savvy Ecologists

The robot built from pieces of newspapers, scrap plastic and empty soda bottles buzzed and beeped and finally popped the question.

“Who knows what’s recyclable?” it asked 100 school kids Wednesday in Pacific Palisades. Every little hand in the room shot up as children shouted answers.

Half an hour later, when the robot said goodby and the Earth Week school assembly drew to a close, children had been complimented on being savvy recyclers. And they had been urged to put pressure on their parents to be the same by using such things as low-wattage fluorescent lamps and water heater blankets at home.

Children at Corpus Christie Grammar School seemed inclined to do just that. “I have to remind my mom a lot,” confided sixth-grader Sophie Funke. “She throws away (soda) bottles and I get them out of the trash. She says, ‘Oops.’ ”

On Earth Day today, parents across Los Angeles may be wondering if their children have become ecology robots too.

“He’s definitely the Jiminy Cricket on my shoulder, constantly reminding me to recycle,” George Schinto of Pacific Palisades said of his son Logan, 11.

At Madison Elementary School in Pasadena, Lynn Christensen laughed as she patted her 3 1/2-year-old daughter, Crystal, on the head: “Even she gets on my case about recycling.

“At first I’d tell my kids not to tell me what to do, that I didn’t want to wash jars,” Christensen said. “Over the weekend, my 7-year-old, Eric, made me save the picnic soda cans.”

Experts predict that the advancing army of pint-size environmentalists will eventually outflank all of us.

“It’s clearly an issue where kids are leading the way,” said Andrew Revkin, a New Yorker who is author of “Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast.” He is in Los Angeles to deliver an Earth Day lecture Saturday at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum. “It’s their world we’re messing up and they know it.”

Educational psychologists say youngsters who become ardent environmentalists are probably as worried about the survival of their parents as they are the planet.

Grown-ups’ first reaction often is negative. “You think, ‘What’s this pipsqueak doing trying to tell me about the world?’ ” said Dr. Loeb Aronin, director of psychological services for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

But smart parents sit down and discuss their children’s environmental concerns. That generally leads youngsters to think their parents care both about the ecology and their values, Aronin said.

In Los Angeles schools, classroom time spent on environmental issues has more than doubled in the past 10 years, said Gerald Garner, science coordinator for the school district.

The robot show in Pacific Palisades was staged for free by Waste Management, a trash disposal and recycling firm. The company owns about a dozen of the $30,000, remote-controlled machines, said company executive Bob Morris.

Robot operator Gary Peterson said his company has made presentations for schoolchildren since 1973. “We started with slide shows,” he said. “We’re getting more sophisticated.”

So are the children.