At museum camp, youngsters play and create as they learn about recycling

Decomposition durations for garbage, both hard and soft, was just part of what a group of youngsters learned about last week in Recycling Days Camp at The History Museum of Hood River.

The campers also made art work and learned about sustainability at home and while in the outdoors, and just plain played in the park during their four-day adventure at the museum and around the community. AmeriCorps volunteer Andrea Smith coordinated the camp.

U.S. Forest Service employees came to talk about “leave no trace” and the campers made musical instruments out of found objects, inspired by the “landfill harmonic” in Peru, a group that Smith said “are making very quality instruments out of reclaimed objects.

“It’s pretty amazing, and we wanted to make instruments, too,” Smith said.

Camper Rachel Mason, 11, said, “We learned how long things take to decompose.”

That diaper takes 450 years, according to Rachel. A glass bottle takes one million years.

The museum has done history related camps before, but this was the first recycling program.

“It was fun. I liked when we went to Jackson Park,” Seth Frost said.

Smith said she got the idea “from moving from Arizona to Oregon, because recycling is a bigger part of living here, and I thought they should learn about it early.”

On their final day, the campers put recycling to good use by creating wood cutouts of flowers and butterflies decorated with bottle caps that Smith had spent eight months collecting.

“That’s what history is, taking old things and making new things,” Smith said.

Also participating were Yazie Heredia, 11; Audrey Lane, 7; Sarah Mason, 8; Ohnyxa Heredia, 6; Morgan Newton, 10; and Jynel Heredia, 10. Helpers included Tina Weekly and Elaine Johnson.