Friday may be Earth Day, but Christian Culbert has been doing his part for the planet for months.

Since school started last September, the sixth-grader from Emily Dickinson Elementary/Explorer Community School in Redmond has biked to and from school every single day this year. Not even the long and wet winter has been enough to stop him — from sun to snow and everything Mother Nature has delivered in between, Christian has pedaled about a mile each way from home to school and back again.

But Christian isn’t the only student who has changed his behavior to be more environmentally friendly. All students at Dickinson/Explorer have been taking steps to be more green.

In honor of Earth Day, the school will have a Wetlands Week from April 25-29 in which students of all grades, along with staff, parents and community members, will work on preserving the wetlands located on the school grounds. Each class will have a one-hour block during the week to do one of the following tasks: Remove invasive plant species, prepare the soil or plant native plants.

“It’s a lot of work to maintain,” Christian said.

Although a lot of work is done during this week, the students are working in the wetlands year-round.

This is the fourth year Dickinson/Explorer has maintained the wetlands and the school’s efforts have garnered a Eco-School bronze award with Eco-Schools, an international program that provides a framework to help educators integrate sustainable principles throughout their schools and curriculum.

Cindi Bennett, a second-grade teacher at Dickinson/Explorer, said even though they have been doing the wetlands work for a few years, being an Eco-School has really bolstered student involvement and enthusiasm for the project.

“It’s been real exciting to get the Eco-School part in it,” she said. “Because it becomes more student centered.”

To become an Eco-School, Dickinson/Explorer had to go through seven steps — most of the work of which was done by students — which included forming an eco-action team of teachers and students, an environmental audit of the wetlands and creating an Eco-Code.

The Eco-Code is a school’s mission statement that reflects the school’s action plan and curriculum. Dickinson/Explorer’s code was designed by sixth-grader Allie O’Loughlin (above, left). She said she thinks the Eco-Code has helped boost the students’ confidence in their green efforts.

Sixth-grade teacher Hadley Jensen (above, right) said the students really take their work seriously and take a lot of pride in what they do have done in the previous years.

“There is a major environmental energy in this school,” Jensen said.

She added that they have received a lot of support from parents and the surrounding community.

The City of Redmond is also working to get more young people to go green. The Old Fire House Teen Center (OFH) has started an Environmental Club this month that will run through October.

Alexandra DySard, the club’s adviser said one of the club’s goals is to get teens to live every day like it’s Earth Day.

“It’s a lifestyle,” she said. “I think it’s very important.”

DySard, an administrative assistant at OFH, also works as a park ranger for the City of Bellevue. She said the Environmental Club will have various aspects to it: environmental speakers, field trips and a garden at the teen center. In the garden, they will grow salad greens, corn, herbs, eggplants and other food stuffs. DySard said growing edible plants would help teach teens about the benefits of locally grown foods.

The club is open to teens ages 13-19 and meets Tuesdays at 3 p.m. at OFH at 16510 N.E 79th St. and will continue to meet during the summer.

“We didn’t want to be just another high school environmental club,” she said, adding that most of those clubs end when school does.

DySard said it is extremely important for young people to learn about going green early because not only will these behaviors become habit, but it will also ingrain an environmentally conscious attitude.

Christian agreed adding that kids will have a greater impact on the planet in the long run.

“Kids are definitely the key to saving the planet,” he said. “(Adults) will be recycling for another 40 years or so. Kids have another 80.”