Check out the new reusable cotton shopping bags with all the kids' drawings and finished ceramic bears below!!

All 430 students get to take a home a reusable bag customized with their own drawing on it.

   The Aquebogue PolyBear Project was a huge success!
   Started Monday, November 5th, the project ran for a full week.

All students at Aquebogue Elementary School collaborated in making large recycled polyethylene Polar Bears from shopping bags collected at school.

   With this outdoor sculpture project we hope to bring attention to climate change and the plight of
   Polar Bears and other creatures living in the arctic region. By recycling our bags we can also learn    about all the plastic we create on earth and how we can reuse it.

   In addition to the outdoor sculptures placed in and around the school, we made Polar Bears
   out of clay, Polar Bear drawings and created our own reusable shopping bag.

The PolyBears will be on view at the Parrish Museum in Southampton, NY. Date: TBA

	Polar Bears at present number approximately 22,000
	Polar Bears live in the Arctic Circle North of Canada
	Polar Bears hunt for seals in the Spring and eat other things at other times of the year
	Two thirds of Polar Bears will disappear by the year 2050
	The amount of ice in the arctic melted this summer equals the size of six Californias!
	Life for a Polar Bear includes feasting and fasting - this means an occasional whale for lunch.
	Adult Polar Bears weigh up to 1550 pounds - the same as 25 third graders!

	Americans use 100 billion plastic shopping bags each year.
	Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.
	Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups.
	Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide.
	Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags.
	Plastic bags are made of petrochemicals which are not a renewable resource.
	Bioplastics are a form of plastics derived from plant sources such as hemp oil, soy bean oil and corn starch rather than traditional plastics which are derived from petroleum.

	International Polar Year
	The Down to Earth Guide to Global Warming
	Reusablebags.com
	New York Times article on Polar Bears
	New York Times article on climate change
	Bioplastic
	Polar Bears International
	National Geographic Polar Bears
	Recent Polybear Press: The News Review Riverhead Central School District News

The 435 kids at Aquebogue School are the artists who created the PolyBear Project.

Along with visiting artists Marta Baumiller, Cliff Baldwin and art instructor Maureen Ahern, the students from Aquebogue created 4 full scale bears made entirely from recycled plastic shopping bags and wire used in the Bottlebug Project in 2006.

10,000 Bags have been collected by students at the school.
4500 Bags in total were used in the project by all 430 students (K-4th grade).

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3