For the third year running, the Princeton Public Schools helped plan and table at “Party Like It’s Your Earth Day,” a community green fair hosted in partnership with Sustainable Princeton and Morven Museum & Garden on April 27, 2025.
This year, we were thrilled to have every school in the Princeton Public School District participate in the event and host a wide variety of fun, family-friendly activities.
Princeton’s elementary schools joined the celebration with innovative ideas for their interactive tables. Johnson Park Elementary School continued its tradition of teaching the basics of planting; about 200 event participants assembled mini planters, scooping soil, planting seeds, and watering their seedlings. Community Park Elementary School showed participants how to recycle their broken old crayons by melting them into fun new shapes and colors. Littlebrook created a game that taught visitors how to sort their trash correctly in order to recycle plastic per the Municipality of Princeton’s guidelines. Finally, Riverside created an interactive nature scavenger hunt plus featured a hands-on art project inspired by seeds and planting. All four of the PPS elementary schools helped make the Earth Day celebration a blast for the K-12 kids.
Princeton Middle School helped organize an all-ages book swap. And the Princeton High School offered multiple programs, including:
- Students for Animal Advocacy and Environmental Action (SFAAEA) Club and Ridgeview Woods educated visitors about invasive and native plants, students’ work helping to build an ‘Emerald Necklace’ of trails around Princeton, and their goals in advocating for environmental legislation locally. Additionally, they helped the younger kids create Earth Day bracelets with wooden beads.
- PHS Science to Startup Club showed off their handmade, sustainable soaps and talked about sustainability in self-care.
- PHS Science Research Classes, the PHS Community Service Group, and the PHS Generation Green Team – a part of the Climate Grant Team in Princeton Public Schools – discussed conducting research into bio-recycling plastics using microbes and their progress in establishing a sustainable, organic community garden on the school property to grow marketable greens in resource-efficient ways for the local community.
- The Civic Leaders of America talked about climate change’s impact on food insecurity and had a composting presentation.
- PHS’s a cappella group, Around 8, gave a pitch-perfect performance.
In addition, several students volunteered to help teach and monitor proper trash, compost, and recycling disposal at the zero-waste stations as well as helping with the return of reusable Redish dishes. Student volunteers also generally helped with event support throughout the day.
In addition to the schools, local nonprofit organizations, including Friends of Princeton Open Space, the Princeton Public Library, Watershed Institute, the Center for Modern Aging, the Princeton Environmental Commission, the Arts Council of Princeton, and R+K=Smiles Upcycled Toys contributed to programming.
This year’s celebration included the first Trashion Show, where artists of all ages showcased their style with handmade recycled outfits. Gratitude Yoga offered a free outdoor yoga session on the lawn. Morven’s horticulturist, Louise Senior, offered free historic garden tours, and DJ James Myricks got the whole crowd dancing.
Thank you to all of our wonderful volunteers and community partners for helping to organize and attend!
