There's a panda made of paper towel rolls and other works of environmental art. Fifty sculptures will be displayed on Saturday at Vacaville's Downtown Farmers' Market. Schools throughout northern Solano County have planned their own special events leading up to Earth Day. Today at Orchard Elementary School in Vacaville, children will learn how red worms can be used to burrow through kitchen waste, creating soil-enriching compost. Seven hundred butterflies will take to the sky when children who have raised them in their classrooms set them free Wednesday morning from the garden at Travis' Foxboro Elementary School in Vacaville.
Several schools are in the midst of planting gardens.
At Alamo Elementary School, a garden will supply fresh fruits and vegetables to the cafeteria. There are also plans for a pumpkin patch, strawberries, sunflowers, beans, a compost heap and more. Browns Valley and Fairmont elementary schools are beginning work on gardens. School have received help in the form of various grants and donations of gardening tools. Students at Willis Jepson Middle School are making headway on a habitat restoration project behind the campus, where they have been pulling weeds in a thicket of neglected oak saplings.