By KATIE lACKEY
Student Writer
Conserving Our Ranger Environment, a club at Northwestern, is sponsoring a recycling program in Enid for an on-campus preschool class.
Conserving Our Ranger Environment focuses on providing students with leadership opportunities, as well as offering programs and services related to environmental issues on campus and in the community.
Dr. Steven Mackie, associate professor of education, is in charge of the recycling that takes place on the Enid campus. He has been recycling on the campus for years, but this fall is when he began the Rangers Recycling Program, which involves the young people. The Enid Public School’s preschool class serves as a laboratory type of learning for education majors. The education majors are able to try different techniques and practice different methodologies. He hopes to continue the recycling program as long as the classroom is willing.
Every two weeks Mackie and Jason Ogg, a librarian on the Enid campus, make their rounds picking up items to be recycled. After they have made their rounds, Keep Enid Green, also known as K.E.G., will come collect all the recycling. They are recycling essentially everything, except glass, since the City of Enid does not recycle glass. They collect paper goods, cardboard, plastic, and aluminum.
They include the preschoolers by choosing five kids from the class to come along as they pick up items to be recycled. The students even get to wear capes that have the green, three arrow recycling emblem with an “R” in the middle of it on the back. Mackie and Ogg have two adult sized capes, while the five students chosen to collect recycling with them that day get to wear smaller capes. “The kids are totally stoked when they see Jason and I coming down the hall in our capes,” Mackie said. They get super excited and all want to go!”
They call themselves the Superhero Ranger Recyclers. Mackie and Ogg not only collect recycling with the students, but also teach them about the importance of recycling, what you can recycle and where to recycle. Mackie said, “ The intention is really to get them to start making the connections about the importance of taking care of the planet Earth.”
Ogg, who has been a member of Conserving Our Ranger Environment since last year and is also the Enid representative for CORE, said, “ I think it is a great opportunity to have this preschool class here on our campus for a variety of reasons. It is always great to spread the word about recycling among the young and get that in their mindset and get them excited about it, for me that is the best part of it.”
For more information, contact Jason Ogg at jlogg@nwosu.edu or (580) 213-3141, or Steven Mackie at swmackie@nwosu.edu or (580) 213-3121.