Mankind's negligent mistreatment of the planet has been going on far longer than Laurie Farber, one of Jericho's most outspoken environmental advocates, has been appealing to fellow Long Islanders to save it. But as her homegrown educational, environmental organization, Starflower Experiences, reaches its watershed 10th anniversary, Farber can look back and realize that, while 10 years cannot reverse decades of neglect, her efforts might very well have a measurable ripple effect in the decades to come.

By reaching out to impressionable school children throughout the Island, the key mission of Starflower Experiences, Starflower may have cultivated a future group of environmentally-aware adults who will act more responsibly toward their home planet. And that will be something to celebrate at Starflower's anniversary party, being held on March 21 at Sweet Hollow Hall, West Hills County Park in Melville, from 1 - 4 p.m.

Wisely armed with a stockade of colorful attention-grabbing puppets and props, Farber and her five-member Starflower Experiences crew migrate across Long Island's local elementary schools, enacting whimsical vignettes that teach children how they are not too young to be mindful of the Earth and its resources.

"We want them to understand something about how life functions and understand how their choices make a difference," said Farber. Among the many school districts which Starflower has visited are Syosset and Jericho, the latter from which Farber graduated.

Starflower's oldest and perhaps most beloved routine, "Save the Trashasaurus, which Farber still brings to classrooms, is also celebrating its tenth year. The star of the show, the friendly, green Trashasaurus is a cute, homemade dinosaur puppet whose fabric has worn very little, and whose impact on children seemingly hasn't worn at all.

"I really don't think over 10 years [their] reactions have changed," said Farber.

"Every little kid likes dinosaurs - that's not going to go away. There's an empathy with puppets that's not going to go away," continued Farber, who specifically designed the Trashasaurus program for grades 1 -3. "It's fun. It's colorful. Kids are going to participate in it, and hopefully they'll respond to it. That's what we ask them to do." The Trashasaurus will be part of the anniversary display this weekend.

The concept behind the Trashasaurus program is to get kids to eliminate the Jurassic junk that sticks to and torments the poor dinosaur. The dino's friends, the Again-Again Bird and the Bucket Bug, inform the children which products can re-reused or recycled, rather than discarded. Farber molds the presentation to fit the needs of each community, explaining to children their own town's specific instructions for preparing recyclable materials.

Children also learn that some products, like certain fruit juice boxes, should never be purchased because there is no secondary use for the product.

According to Farber, even some teachers have approached her after the presentation admitting that they were unaware that certain of their lifestyle habits damaged the environment.

The other program Starflower commonly offers to schools is "Here Comes the Water Patrol," an entertaining skit intended for third- and fourth-graders, emphasizing the importance of groundwater. Said Farber, "The message is that we drink groundwater, [and] using too much can be a problem."

Starflower offers children of a wider age range opportunities outside the classroom to explore their local environment. Its Earthkeepers, Ecodefenders, Earth Rangers and Long Island Naturally programs allow kids to observe indigenous animal life, understand ecological processes and teach them to conserve water and recycle garbage. The organization even holds occasional programs exclusively for adults, such as its annual comedy, "The Great Water Table Robbery, a farcical look at water conservation.

Prior to founding Starflower, Farber was a Fire Island Park Ranger and, more recently, a high school biology teacher at St. John the Baptist and Port Washington's Schreiber High School. Although Farber certainly was more than qualified to teach biology, the confining curriculum did not permit her to be original in her lesson plan.

"Teaching high school is very difficult, especially when teaching Regents classes," said Farber. "It wasn't about the kind of learning I wanted to be involved in. The focus is on the test."

She decided her creative spirit could be used better indoctrinating her environmental lessons into the more malleable minds of younger children. It was crucial that she'd be "making an impact," she said.

In May of 1989, shortly after her last teaching job, Farber was inspired to create Starflower based on an educational program that she had created for a local school district. The program was an antecedent to Starflower's first official children's workshop, Trashbusters, which Farber placed on hiatus recently for retooling.

Starflower's and Trashasaurus' birthday party on March 21 promises to be a fun and trashless celebration, said Farber. There will be a silent auction as well.

Farber thanked her Starflower crew that has contributed to 10 years of success. "We have some really good people who care about kids [and] the earth...and that's what's important," said Farber.