• Reduce waste. Buy products with less packaging or packaging that can be recycled. Recycle everything you possibly can—paper, plastics, glass, cardboard, and metal—and compost plant-based food scraps to make a great soil conditioner for your garden.

• Reuse plastic grocery and shopping bags. They make great liners for small wastebaskets.

• Empty smaller wastebaskets into a larger trash can. That way you don’t have to throw away the bag used to line the smaller basket.

• Choose the right size bag. Using bags that are larger than you need is simply a waste of resources and money.

• Compact your trash by hand. Reduce the volume of bulky items such as milk cartons by pressing or stepping on them.

• Consider investing in a trash compactor. It will reduce the volume of trash and the number and size of bags you use.

• Buy greener trash bags. Purchase bags made with recycled materials, degradable plastic, or biodegradable plastic.

• Read a good book (non-work related, of course)

• Keep up with world news, pop culture and politics

• Travel for pleasure

• Volunteer your time

• Talk to people with whom you don’t work

• Enjoy a hobby

—Submitted by the MCC Wellness Committee (04.28.10)

Isabel Guerrero, Cristina Ospina, Elena Gomez, Milagro Romero, Lucy Arias, Luis Lugo, Maria Amezaga, Martha Degro, Esperenza Yepes, Mirian Arriagada, Leyvin Gonzales, Amparo Brock, Carol Villalobos, Aurelio Hernandez… What do all of these Mitchell Community College students have in common? They have all recently become United States citizens! The ESL program at Mitchell Community College has a very strong citizenship class that is offered in the Basic Skills Department. The class focuses on the many aspects of obtaining U.S. citizenship including lessons about government, civics, American history, reading, writing, and speaking. There are 100 questions that our students must know to become an American citizen, and the application process is just one of the many hurdles they face when striving for citizenship. Think you could pass the test? Take our short quiz at the end of this article to find out. Mitchell Community College ESL students are mothers, fathers, friends, neighbors and members of the workforce and community. They come from all around the world to learn how to best acclimate to American culture and way of life. Some countries represented in our classes are Japan, China, Laos, Thailand, Russia, Germany, Hungary, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Vietnam, Jordan, Haiti, Ghana, Argentina, Ecuador, India, Turkey, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, South Korea, Romania, Yugoslavia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Uruguay, France, Italy, Greece, Guinea, among others. What is Citizenship? "Citizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, national, or human resource community. Citizenship status carries with it both rights and responsibilities. "Active citizenship" is the philosophy that citizens should work towards the betterment of their community through economic participation, public, volunteer work, and other such efforts to improve life for all citizens." Do you think you could pass the citizenship test? These five questions might appear on the citizenship test:

1. Name one of the three authors of Federalist papers.

2. Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the states. What is one power of the states?

3. What happened at the Constitutional Convention?

4. Why did the colonists fight the British?

5. What territory did the United States buy from France in 1803?