My friend Kenny Luna is at it again...check out this year's Earth Day project for students..!
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Yellow caution tape blocked the entrance of a second-floor room in Robert Moses Middle School.
Inside, the North Babylon school's copy machine was suffering from a case of "tree-biting rabies." Decorated with a single eye and two arms that shoved paper into its red mouth, it spewed foam in the form of yellow balloons.
The machine and all photocopies were off-limits at the school yesterday as part of "The Great Copy Machine Epidemic."
The goal of the pre- Earth Day effort, which was designed by a North Babylon teacher and in place at 30 schools nationwide, was to help stop global warming by limiting copy machine usage.
"Schools are a place where we use tremendous amounts of photocopies," said the teacher, Kenny Luna, 32. "Simple changes make a big difference."The seventh-grade science teacher said he hopes the initiative starts discussions that raise awareness and lead students to make changes in their daily lives. "It's not just a poster contest," he said. "It actually reduces carbon emissions."
Participating schools diagnosed their own made-up disorders, such as "treeberculosis" and "tree pox," said Luna, who dressed as a mad scientist in a curly white wig and lab coat yesterday. Students, some wearing medical scrubs, had helped decorate the machine.
Schools in Lynbrook, Levittown, Garden City, Lindenhurst, Middle Island and Northport had their own copy machine epidemics, Luna said, as well as schools in 13 states and the Caribbean island of Curacao.
Based on figures he compiled from the Environmental Defense Fund's Paper Calculator, Luna estimated that his "national day of action" saved 16 trees and 3,700 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.
But if every school in the nation participated, he said, more than 38,000 trees and 9 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions would have been saved.
Beginning Tuesday, Earth Day, polls will open on Luna's Web site, greatcopyepidemic. com, to determine which school was the most creative in communicating the message that making photocopies affects global warming. The winner will receive a $125 prize to buy and plant a tree, he said.
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In 2006, Luna, with the help of The Home Depot, gave every North Babylon student an energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulb. The initiative, "Mr. Luna's Bright Idea," saved North Babylon residents about $500,000 in energy costs, he said.
Luna conceived the copy machine project last year after learning about an Oregon school's no-copy day. Luna devised the faux-illness idea hoping it would appeal to students. It did, and Luna's students are enthusiastic about how the initiative will grow in coming years.
"Everyone will see it, and they'll think it's weird, but cool," said seventh-grader Moumita Khondaker, 12. "It can be like a holiday."
