Environmental Defenders Russel Harper, left, and Ben Thomas, right, enlist the help of Ronan Palmer, second from left, Ghey Agrrerio and John Dreinen in singing a song Tuesday at Incarnation Parish School about the environment.
Maria Campo wasn’t at a rock concert Tuesday afternoon at Incarnation Parish School in Glendale, but she danced and sang like someone who was.
Rather, 8-year-old Maria was watching the Rock the Planet tour of the Environmental Defenders, an educational assembly about recycling sponsored by the county of Los Angeles Department of Public Works.
It was the first time the Environmental Defenders program has been performed at Incarnation, a kindergarten through eighth-grade Catholic school of about 300 students.
“I loved it,” Maria said of the assembly, after she stopped bopping around long enough to talk. “It taught you a lot about recycling and reusing. I liked the dancing, too.”
The program features two performers who use the stage names Al Luminum and Polly Ethylene, and a video with children and cartoon children as well. The Rock the Planet version of the program has been showing in Los Angeles County schools since 2004, and the original version of the Environmental Defenders was launched in 1996, according to the Department of Public Works.
Performers Russel Harper, playing Al Luminum, and Ben Thomas, playing Polly Ethylene, sang and danced along with the Environmental Defenders video, which focused on storm water pollution, household hazardous waste and the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling.
“They feel like they’re doing something fun,” Thomas said. “They might not even realize they’re learning.”
Telling students that it would take only 10 days for the residents of Los Angeles County to fill Dodger Stadium with their daily household garbage, Harper and Thomas sang about the importance of creating less garbage. Kids can help by doing things like not taking a paper bag after purchasing something unless they need it, and not grabbing more paper napkins than they need when they eat.