Click here to see how area students are learning to "go green"

Bluffton Elementary School third-grader Devin Gentry has his eyes on the prize.

He might get to hold the winner's trophy today if he and his fellow students brought in more aluminum cans for recycling than eight other area schools.

Students have been collecting cans since Feb. 29. If Bluffton Elementary did collect the most, Devin's school will win the Go Green Can Recycling Competition, sponsored by the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce 2008 leadership class. A trophy will be awarded at Greenfest today, a celebration of local recycling efforts.

"I'll feel pretty happy," Devin said of the possibility of winning.

Participating in the contest is just one of thethings local schools are doing to teach recycling. The efforts are part of a national trend. For example, the Go Green Initiative Association, which runs a Web site to help schools create cultures of environmentalism on campus, sprung up in 2002. Today, more than 1.5 million students and teachers are registered at Go Green schools.

Devin's teacher, Barbara Hodgins, teaches her students about recycling whenever she can. Her students can tell you that recycling a 6-foot pile of newspaper saves a 30- foot tree. At Bluffton Elementary, SP Recycling Corp. of Savannah pays the school a few dollars a month to take those papers away every week.

At Okatie Elementary School, teachers and parents have come together to fund recycling pick-ups for paper and plastic by Beaufort County Waste Management. The school needs to raise about $70 a month for the pick-ups. On Fridays, kids volunteer to take recycling out to the school's bins.

Fourth-grader Nicolette Ursillo is one student who volunteers. "I just want to help people and help the world," she said. "Sometimes when I go to the beach, I see litter and I pick it up."

At Hilton Head Island International Baccalaureate Elementary School, fourth-grade teacher Amy Tressler increased environmental awareness by starting an after-school environmental club. Her students have participated in nature walks, bird watching and planting gardens. They also use www.catalogchoice.org to prevent unwanted magazines from coming to their homes.

"If we don't take care of the environment, it's going to be a hard life for all of us," said David Walker, one of Tressler's students.

At some schools, recycling takes more effort. At H.E. McCracken Middle School, teachers take both newspapers and plastic bottles to recycling centers themselves.

Susan Dee, a sixth-grade science teacher, placed plastic bottle collection bins in the halls.

Student Tim Ambrose said, "I was never in this class, and I didn't know about the environment and what I was hurting. I haven't done it at home yet. I don't have a recycling bin ... I'm going to ask my dad to go get one, and then I can recycle all I want."