CHS Global Science class planning Colfax Beautification Day April 28

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX —  Mark Mosey’s Global Science class at Colfax High School is planning to celebrate Earth Week with Colfax Beautification Day on Friday, April 28.

“We wanted to get the whole community involved. At first we thought about just doing it at school, but then we thought maybe the community would want to join in to help us with it,” said Nate Polden, one of Mosey’s Global Science students.

“If people from the community want to join in, they’re welcome. We are for sure going to have the whole high school out, picking up garbage, cleaning up flower beds, working out in the woods by the school. We’ll be picking up the community and making it more presentable to visitors,” said Jack Edwards, another of Mosey’s students.

“We will be doing this throughout the entire village of Colfax and on roads outside of Colfax,” Edwards said.

Felland Park, Twenty-two Mile Ford Park, the Russian Slough and Dobbs’ Landing will be included as well, he added.

When asked how they are formulated the idea for Colfax Beautification Day, Brielle Bjork replied, “We needed an activity for Earth Day.”

Earth Day is celebrated worldwide on April 22. The first Earth Day was held in 1970 and was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin.

One of the Global Science classroom’s most cherished possessions is an Earth Day flag signed by Gaylord Nelson.

The Earth Day flag has been flown on the school’s flagpole, but the flag is now becoming somewhat fragile and is only brought out on special occasions, Mosey said.

The Global Science class also is obtaining steel barrels. The fourth grade classes will put their handprints on the barrels, and Global Science class members will put handprints on them, and the barrels will be placed at Felland Park and Dobbs’ Landing for garbage containers.

“We’ll give them someplace to put their trash. Maybe we can stop some of the littering,” said one class member.

“Most of us have all went through Biology and Advanced Biology with Mr. Mosey. Those classes focus on the life side of things, animals and plants. This class, there’s a wide variety of what we talk about. We mainly talk about the issues happening on Planet Earth today, and that fits in with Global Science and Earth Day. Pollution. Global warming. Runoff,” Edwards said.

“We are going to promote, too, that if you can’t come and help the day we are going to do this, you can still help out the day after, or whenever. You don’t have to participate on that day. By just going out to pick up garbage, you can help make it look better around town,” Edwards said.

Other classes are helping with the planning for Colfax Beautification Day as well.

Mike Dombrowski’s Current Events class is developing a brochure that will be distributed around town to help make people more aware, Mosey said.

“It’s not just this class, but this class will be coordinating (the beautification day),” he said.

Students were assigned to go out and take three pictures of the natural beauty around Colfax and turn them in, and some of the pictures will be used on the brochures, said Treyton Teige, another member of the Global Science class.

People can look for the brochures at businesses around town, Edwards said.

Colfax High School has nearly 270 students, and the class advisors will be working on the cleanup, too.

The students will be split up into groups, and so far, there are about 13 different activities. The Global Science class is working on coordinating those activities, Mosey said.

“These guys have been really awesome in planning this. They’ve been working on it for a couple of weeks now. They’ve got a lot of good ideas. What I like is that it’s a lot of their ideas, and they are taking ownership,” he said.

“I think it will work out really well. And I think it should be something we do every year, but that will have to be up to the Advanced Bio class after this,” Edwards said.

Mosey said he knew of a couple of ravines that also could benefit from some pickup and cleanup, and perhaps the ravines could be part of another Colfax Beautification Day.

Long tradition

Interestingly enough, the Colfax Beautification Day planned by the Global Science class fits in with a historical tradition of cleanup in Colfax.

From the April 20, 1917, Colfax Messenger —

To the People of the Village of Colfax:

I hereby proclaim April 23rd to April 28th the official opening week for the 1917 Clean-up and Paint-up Campaign to be carried on throughout the length and breadth of the Village of Colfax.

The Village Administration feels it proper to urge upon all of the citizens to co-operate in this movement in every way and make it a complete success, for all want Colfax cleaner, more beautiful and more sanitary.

We invite the ladies of the Woman’s Club to co-operate with us. And school children can perform a valuable service in this work. They can aid the Clean-up movement in many ways. In fact, everybody is urged to clean up his or her premises, rake the yards, and place cans, bottles, etc., in boxes or barrels, so the village authorities will lose as little time as possible in making the collection.

The Village is really doing more than its share in this work, in standing the expense of the Clean-up, and I accordingly urge all citizens to have all rubbish, etc. ready to haul away. Signed — George T. Vorland, President Village Board