Jon Hassler, a fourth-grader at Meridian Elementary School, colors his grocery bag in teacher Cindy Michelini's class Thursday. The school is participating in the Earth Day Groceries Project.

Students in Cindy Michelini's fourth grade class are quick to explain their teacher's attitude toward conservation. "She loves the environment," said Jon Hassler, one of Michelini's students at Meridian Elementary.

"She loves it so much she rides a bike to school," agreed Dylan Rundle.

Michelini said conservation is sometimes a topic in class, especially during recent science lessons that focus on land and water.

But come Wednesday, students at the school will promote environmental awareness outside the classroom, where their original artwork will adorn paper not plastic grocery bags.

To celebrate Earth Day, the school is participating in the Earth Day Groceries Project, an awareness campaign formed by a Seattle teacher in the 1990s.

As part of the project, grocery stores provide paper bags to schools, which decorate the bags for use on Earth Day. Each school then can record its number of bags on a Web site, where an ongoing national tally is kept. The site also contains reports, photographs and a blog.

"It opens up dialogue in the classroom," Michelini said. "It opens up discussion about pollution, conservation and also about any type of issue surrounding the Earth."

In Michelini's class, one such session addressed clean water.

"We talked about how water in Butler will eventually end up in the Gulf of Mexico," Michelini said. "It starts to give them a more global sense."

Since the school's 430 students all are decorating bags, Michelini said the project also will bring a shared purpose to the student body. But the collaborative message is being delivered in diverse ways, even in Michelini's class.

Molly Calvert's bag is adorned with fruit trees and flowers.

Chad Pakozki's showcases an abstract globe with the slogan "Don't pollute water or land. Please pick up litter."A bag decorated by Sarah Koch reads, "When you see litter, pick it up, please" and "It's so easy, a caveman can do it."Rundle's contains a colorful rainbow and earth, with a penciled-in man saying, "Don't worry, I'm eating Skittles."With so much effort put into decorating, some students expressed curiosity about the fate of the bags after they are used."We don't know if they are going to throw them away," Hassler said.If bags eventually end up in landfills, Michelini said they at least will biodegrade much faster than their plastic counterparts.Tom Longo, who manages the Giant Eagle at Moraine Pointe Plaza where the bags will be used to hold grocery items bought by customers, said the store has participated in at least one previous Earth Day Groceries Project.Distributing the paper bags deviates from typical distribution at the store, which uses about 98 percent plastic bags, he said.Although many people view paper bags as more environmentally friendly, Longo said the more cost-effective plastic bags also can be recycled.For more information on the Earth Day Groceries Project, go to www.earthdaybags.org.

Molly Calvert, a fourth-grader at Meridian Elementary School, colors fruit trees and flowers on a paper grocery bag that will be used to hold groceries bought Wednesday by customers at the Giant Eagle at Moraine Pointe Plaza. The school project will coincide with Earth Day, which is Wednesday.