By Joy Dorst
mail@floridanewsline.com
On April 22, 1970, millions of Americans took to the streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies.
Forty-five years later, Bartram Trail High School took to the courtyard to demonstrate creative works designed and executed by students in the Design Academy and Art and Music Departments. The school’s first annual Earth Day celebration was a welcome treat of recognizing the positive and tangible contributions that the future generation is having in our lives and on the planet.
This year, on April 22, 2016, talented students rallied once again in the courtyard with choral music, photography, paintings, 3D paper shoes and ceramics, dresses made from paper bags, an umbrella made from thousands of plastic bags, a recycling bin composed of hundreds of soda cans, a bed repurposed from wooden pallets, backyard chicken coops made from backyard materials, birdhouses designed and constructed for a broad range of bird species and topographic models of typical suburban communities.
The collective expression of creative works by the talented young people of Bartram Trail High School promises hope for a bright and sustainable future. The Earth should be happy with our future stewards.
Joy Dorst is the drafting teacher at Bartram Trail High School.
CUTLINE
Photos courtesy Joy Dorst
Chicken Coop builders (Drafting 2 students) explain their design to St. Johns County School Board member, Kelly Barrera.
  Recycled plastic bag umbrella created by junior Drafting 3 students
