Quad-Cities earth week fair
Packing peanuts look more like cheese puffs at Earth Day Fair

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By Tamara Fudge | Saturday, April 19, 2008 |

At the QCCA Expo center's 5th annual Quad-Cities Earth Week Fair on Saturday, Mark Schecher, center, helps his daughters Maggie, 6, left, and Katie, 10, create recycled junk sculptures at Habitat for Humanity's ReStore booth.(Elisa Petersen/Quad-City Times) Buy this Photo

If visitors to Saturday’s fifth annual Quad-Cities Earth Week Fair at the QCCA Expo Center learned one thing, it’s that things looking like cheese puffs aren’t always edible.

Replacing the old petroleum-based and environmentally-unfriendly packing peanuts, Sheryl Solomonson, the Ag Literacy coordinator for Rock Island County, presented a newer “peanut” made from corn.

“They look like cheesy puffs,” she said.

Solomonson directed children to dip the two kinds of packing peanuts in water. The corn-based product partially dissolved and then could be rubbed away by fingers.

Solomonson was one of 60 exhibitors at the free environmental education event. With Earth Day, April 22, around the corner, several workshops hit on the “going green” trend, including “cooking green,” said Erin Robinson, chair of the Quad-City Earth Week Coalition, which organized the event.

Tyler McDanel of Moline’s Boy Scout Troop 109 needed to earn his Fish and Wildlife Management and Nature badges. “You don’t want to kill fish or animals,” he said.

McDanel especially liked the demonstration with bricks stacked on sand to show how land changes over time.

Two municipalities were attempting to earn points for fuel-efficiency. The City of Rock Island announced the purchase of hybrid automobiles to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50,000 pounds per year and save the city $76,000 in fuel costs over the next 10 years.

Davenport also is replacing city vehicles with fuel-efficient and hybrid models.

“Davenport has had hybrids for two years,” said Kevin Johnson of the city’s fleet maintenance. “Our goal is to replace all nonessential V8s.”

Davenport’s large exhibit also explained that coordinating traffic signals to keep traffic moving saves gasoline and cuts pollution.

Here’s an alternative to pesticides. Bat World of Iowa exhibited several big brown bats, which they promoted as “nature’s bug busters” and having bodies that are only about three inches long but having a large wingspan.

“They’re kind of cool,” Sawyer Swearingen said of the bats. The Cub Scout from East Moline’s Pack 311, was working towards Arrow points by visiting the fair. He and his father Alan built a bat house for up to 250 bats and plan to set it up soon.

About 1,800 children in third through sixth grades from Scott and Rock Island counties took a field trip on Friday to the fair. Saturday was open to the public, with attendees numbering over 1,500.

The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2450 or newsroom@qctimes.com.