By Rachel H. Goldman
Staff Writer
More than 250 Thornton Academy Middle School students spilled from school buses into the Ferry Beach parking lot last Friday as the sun broke through the morning haze.
The classmates, equipped with sanitary gloves and trash bags for the 18th annual World Ocean Day, were prepared to leave Saco’s Ferry Beach cleaner than they found it.
About 1,000 schools worldwide participated in World Oceans Day, a celebration of oceans around the world and what they provide. Aquariums, zoos, museums, conservation organizations, universities, businesses and schools since 1992 have organized events to preserve the bodies of water and enjoy their offerings. More than 300 events in 45 countries participated in the event last year.
This year marked Thornton Academy Middle School’s fifth World Oceans Day celebration.
“It definitely teaches the kids to be part of the solution,” said middle school science teacher Ryan Hersey.
Hersey started the middle school tradition during the school’s first year in 2007.
Middle school students and faculty members each year split into groups and walk the length of Ferry Beach to scour the sand for trash.
Sixth-grader Matthew Collard of Arundel said within a half-hour he found 25 cigarette butts.
“Twenty-six,” he said as he dipped his glove-covered fingertips into the sand.
“It’s definitely a terrific way to give back,” Hersey said as students dispersed across the beach.
The event has become a valued community service tradition at the middle school, Hersey said.
“Somebody sent me an e-mail that first year about (World Oceans Day) and I thought, that’s a great idea. What’s great is that it has really evolved throughout the years,” he said.
Students began their morning cleaning up trash on Thornton Academy’s campus, a practice Hersey said he hopes will make the future high school freshman less likely to “add to the littering problem.”
Eighth-graders Saffron Courtney and Hannah Smith of Arundel agreed the “gross” exercise had an impact on them.
They spent the morning picking up receipts, wrappers, bottle caps and lollipop sticks off the hill and around the tennis courts.
“It definitely makes you think differently about throwing stuff out,” Smith said.
Courtney, Smith and their classmates Nick Roberts and Sydney Douston have celebrated World Oceans Day with the middle school since they were sixth-graders.
Courtney said she appreciates the opportunity to step out into the community.
“It’s not something a lot of schools get to do and it really makes you feel like you’re making a difference,” she said.
Smith added she’s seen less trash on Ferry Beach each year, a transformation she’s enjoyed watching.
Hersey agreed that the amount of trash has decreased since the school tradition began.
The school’s first cleanup in 2007 was on the heels of the destructive Patriot’s Day storm. Middle school students that afternoon left with three truckloads of trash and pieces of tar from corroded Camp Ellis roads.
Last year, the group only found half a truckload of trash on beach grounds.
“It’s definitely slowly dwindling and I like to think that our tradition has a part in that,” he said.
Hersey said the tradition has become more than a community service event – it’s become an opportunity for students to appreciate what oceans offer their communities.
“I asked the kids something different this year,” Hersey said. “I asked them how many of their parents depend on the ocean for their work. About 40 kids raised their hands.”
Hersey said he hoped reframing students’ understanding of oceans would highlight the need to preserve oceans and beaches and help them “stay the way they are.”
After a morning of cleanup, the middle school takes the afternoon to enjoy the sun, focus on team-building activities and reflect on the end of another school year.
Many students said the tradition marks the end of the school year and a transition in their middle school careers.
Last Friday’s World Oceans Day fell on the last Friday of the school year for Thornton Academy Middle School students.
“It really feels like the end of the year. It symbolizes that we’re almost finished,” Courtney said.
“Especially this year,” Roberts added on behalf of his eighth-grade classmates. “It’s not just the end of the year it’s the end of middle school.”
Fifty-three eighth-graders graduated June 16 from middle school and marched through Garland Auditorium for the last time as middle school students.
Roberts said he looks forward to a bigger campus with more people.
Smith said graduation also brings sadness as she and her eighth-grade classmates leave behind younger friends
“Leaving middle school feels kind of like leaving a family,” she said.
The end of the school year also is a transition for sixth-graders who prepare to move up in the middle school world as they watch the eighth-graders move on.
“It’s cool,” said sixth-grader Cade Bowtell of Dayton. ”We’ll be able to move up and have new teachers and feel a little bit more powerful.”
“It’s a very meaningful tradition for students and for staff,” said Thornton Academy Middle School Principal Tiffany Robert. “It’s something we all really look forward to a the end of each year and what I love is the combination of those two parts: The community building and the giving back.”
Staff Writer Rachel H. Goldman can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 233.
TAMS doing great things!
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