Cedar Rapids fourth-grader is a sustainability leader among her peers

CEDAR RAPIDS — Jade McClay is a fourth-grader who loves hamburgers and fries. She can’t resist an episode of Tom and Jerry. She likes challenging math lessons, learning new words and hands-on science activities. Outside of class, she enjoys drawing and dressing up.

Nine-year-old Jade has another interest, though — a deep-seated passion that has followed her throughout elementary school: “I love sustainability … It’s just been so fun.”

At Cedar River Academy at Taylor Elementary, an elementary magnet school focused on sustainability, students learn about the environment and how to take better care of it. Jade’s teachers say she has taken those lessons in stride, going above and beyond for Mother Nature.

Her latest project, for instance, investigates how much trash her school creates.

Once a week, Jade and her classmates “collect evidence” by counting the number of trash bags in the school dumpster. They will take their research to Kristine Sorenson, the Cedar Rapids Community School District’s Green Team coordinator, who assists the district’s student-led teams in interactive and educational environmental programs.

Together, they will determine if the school could do with a smaller dumpster or fewer visits from the dump truck. “It’s to see how much we’ve been throwing away and wasting,” Jade said.

She went on a field trip to the local landfill and learned how it will reach capacity by 2044, which she said she is concerned about because she doesn’t want to pay more for collection services.

“It did not smell good,” she said about the landfill, noting that composting food — which she learns about at school — will help divert waste from the site. “If we didn't compost, that would be bad, and the landfill would look even worse than how it is now.”

The project Jade is most proud of sat in the corner of the classroom: a splatter-painted thrifted dress adorned with donated paint supplies, complete with multicolor fabrics spilling from paint cans. The ensemble’s theme? Street art.

“There's so much detail in the dress and so much hard work,” Jade said. “This took weeks to do.”

With a team of students, she had helped make the dress out of reusable items for a Habitat for Humanity “trashion” show in October that featured outfits of upcycled materials. Jade’s favorite part was the belt made of brushes — her personal addition to the masterpiece.

“We decided to reuse some stuff to make our Earth a better place to live,” she said, running her hand over the dress. “Our Earth is not really a good planet after all this pollution and hazards.”

Jade loves fashion and designing, which made working on the recycled dress that much more exciting to her, said her mother Dawn McClay in an email. She said her 9-year-old daughter was introduced to recycling in second grade.

“I remember her coming home and wanting to start recycling to save the Earth,” Dawn said. “So we have been recycling ever since!”

Jade said her inspiration is Liz Callahan, the school’s magnet coordinator, who she has been working with for several years.

After learning how greenhouse gas emissions in car exhaust contribute to global warming, Jade, her classmates and Callahan teamed up to raise awareness. They created a video on social media about the dangers of car idling. They also walked with handmade signs through the school’s carpool line at dismissal, urging parents to turn off their cars while they waited for their kids.

Jade’s efforts coincided with a districtwide policy against idling, which is in its sustainability plan. A permanent sign with the message now stands in the school’s pickup loop.

“If those cars were on, smoke will be coming out and then we have to breathe that,” Jade said. “We don’t want to breathe that. We want to breathe normal, regular air. That's why we made these signs.”

She said she wants to be an inventor and a businessperson when she grows up. For now, she is forging ahead with sustainability efforts at her school, where she has been a leader among her peers.

“She has always been so passionate about her work with sustainability,” Callahan said. “She's going places. She’s a remarkable 9-year-old.”

Brittney J. Miller is the Energy & Environment Reporter for The Gazette and a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: (319) 398-8370; brittney.miller@thegazette.com