A Kindergarten Eco-Contest Gets Ugly

When a Quebec kindergarten teacher announced a classroom contest to eliminate plastic Ziploc baggies from lunchboxes, her goal was to teach students that plastic isn't good for the planet. However, what happened next made international headlines, and has many calling into question the kind of environmental education young children should receive.

After one of her 6-year-old students got upset as his mom was packing his sandwich in a Ziploc ("No Mommy! Not a Ziploc!" he yelled), his parents found out it was because it would exclude him from a drawing for a prize. The boy's parents thought the competition dogmatic and misguided, and were upset to see their son traumatized by it. The blogosphere has been reverberating with opinions supportive of each side; some point out that the encouraged alternative to the baggies, Tupperware, is still plastic.

Read the full story at ABC News, then tell us: What do you think? Was this teacher out of line or just trying to instill good eco-habits in her pupils?

--Rosie Spinks