Students Turn Recycled Bags Into Works of Art

A Triad middle school teacher is using an art project to educate her students about plastic pollution in waterways and in the soil.

Danielle Tarmey teaches six grade at The Arts Based School in Winston-Salem.  Her colleague, Yvonne Leab is also working with Tarmey to teach students about plastic pollution.

All 28 of their students designed reusable canvas bags to celebrate the meaning of Earth Day.

“Before they decorate their bags, to get inspiration and to understand why they are doing this they do research on the harmful effects of plastic,” says Tarmey.

“They learn things like how species of animals are dying because they either get entangled in plastic or swallow the plastic because they think its food and that there is this swirling mass of plastic in the Pacific Ocean and how that is detrimental that is to the quality of the water,” Tarmey added.

Environmentalist Valerie Lecoeur of Winston-Salem donated the canvas bags to The Arts Based School for the project. 

Tarmey says her students are learning a lot from the experience.

“The research that the children do not only inspires their artwork for the bag but it really is for them to then be able to put together a cohesive and persuasive letter to somebody who will buy that bag.  I enjoy it because it gives them an authentic reason to write,” says Tarmey.

Tarmey says also included in the bags will be a self-addressed stamped post card for the consumer to respond personally to the student who wrote the letter and designed the bag that they bought.

The decorated bags will cost $10.00. The students will sell them to the public during the Piedmont Earth Day Fair on April 27 at the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds.