Fishburn Park Elementary School
Written by GEF Staff
As any educator knows, our profession offers unexpected opportunities that at first may not seem all that appealing. Ironically, though, it’s often these very opportunities that leave the most lasting impressions. My co-worker and I would like to share an experience that not only encapsulated the mission of our school, Fishburn Park Focus for Environmental Science, but also reaffirmed our teaching philosophies.
Over the summer, our principal, Judy Lackey, called me and Kit to ask if we would like to participate in a unique program, Trout in the Classroom, which encourages students to become stewards of Brook Trout. Each year, Trout Unlimited graciously loans fifty gallon tanks and all related equipment to a number of diverse schools. A tank is fully equipped to create a habitat that closely resembles one in which the trout will thrive. In order to sustain such an environment, a lot more is involved than meets the eye. Water is changed every two to three weeks; Ph levels are consistently checked; and, in the beginning, eggs that do not survive are pulled out to prevent any contamination. Knowing all that would be involved in the program, Kit (an avid camper) and I (a not so avid camper) decided to accept the trout challenge.
The trout lifecycle is observed in one year. As educators we are fortunate to witness a small part of a child’s life, realizing that every moment is an opportunity to learn and grow. At the end of the Trout in the Classroom program, all of our hard work paid off as we watched the children release an abundance of trout into a protected stream near the Peaks of Otter. The release was a proud and surreal experience for everyone involved. Kit and I share just one year with our second graders, and it is always bittersweet to watch them move on to third grade. For that brief moment during the release, the students shared in that feeling as they released the trout into their natural habitat and watched them swim off toward the future.
Kit and I would like to thank Trout Unlimited, our mentor Dick Vipperman, and on-call trout lover, Chris O’Neill, for their ongoing support.
Fishburn Park Elementary
Roanoke, VA
The New Rochelle School District
The New Rochelle School district in New Rochelle, NY, is made up of seven elementary schools. This past January all seven schools received a letter from Dr. Kosrostoff, Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum & Instruction, inviting them to participate in National Green Week 2011. As a result, all schools participated in some capacity. Read on to learn about the exciting implementation of National Green Week at each of the schools!
Ward Elementary School
Lunchroom Recycling Initiative:
Ward reduced its lunchroom garbage stream from twenty-two large bags to two, and decreased its breakfast trash from six bags to three-quarters of a bag. This reduction was possible by setting up separation stations in each lunchroom. “Green students" work the stations. At the stations children sort out all paper, plastic, foil, beverage containers (after emptying them) and trays. Only actual
garbage, i.e., leftover food, dirty napkins and ketchup pouches are put in the trash.
Spreading the Initiative to other schools:
We are working to get other schools on board with this important initiative and are happy to assist them as they embark on this very important project.
Reduction of packaging from home lunches initiative:
We are teaching the children who bring their home lunches about reduction of packaging. The results have been great. The amount of water bottles brought from home has halved, tin foil is on the decline, and we are seeing an increase in the use of reusable containers.
Recycling centers:
All classrooms have green and blue bins for recycling. We have recycling centers in the hallways throughout the building.
In addition, we had an assembly called Bash the Trash. Finally, we had the children participate in the DOT initiative (“Do One Thing”). We had children pledge to do one "green" thing and then write about what they chose to do.
Davis Elementary School
Davis School in New Rochelle has actively increased its green efforts during the past several years.
Our efforts include:
- A building-wide audit of containers for recycling
- Kindergarten: flower and vegetable garden
- First grade: flower garden with plantings of annuals from seed
- Second grade: the life cycle of chicks, the study of litter and pollution
- Third grade: butterfly life cycle, one larvae for each student to study
- Fourth grade: study of energy, classroom lights off when not needed, study of life cycles with tadpoles
- Fifth grade: perennial garden as class gift at area of main school sign, creation of recycling posters for school-wide awareness
Additionally, our EarthSavers Committee holds school-wide beverage container sales each year, alternating PBA-free plastic and stainless-steel bottles. This year, reusable fabric shopping bags are also being sold. The EarthSavers Committee also shares environmental tips for parents in the school’s weekly online newsletter and decorated the school’s lobby windows with an Earth Day display to promote stewardship of the environment throughout our school community. An ongoing school-wide effort for recycling print cartridges takes place at Davis School. While green-related issues and topics are already integrated into our rich curriculum, faculty have all consulted the GEF website to incorporate additional grade-appropriate ideas into their own classroom or grade level curriculum as appropriate.
Barnard Early Childhood Center
- Many classrooms use recyclables such as cardboard for classroom art projects throughout the year
- The school recycles paper and plastic in both the classrooms and in the public areas of the school
- Each class visits Amy's Greenhouse throughout the year for various projects. This winter they planted amaryllis bulbs and children learned about the daily growth of the bulbs and plant life.
- Teachers encourage their students to bring reusable water bottles and lunch containers and classes discuss why this is important through books and movies.
- Classrooms turn off the lights whenever possible to work by natural sunlight and conserve energy.
- Principle Lambert has reached out to the teachers and staff at Barnard about the efforts of our committee in her weekly newsletter. She has provided them with the link to the Green Education Foundation website so that they can utilize some of the ideas that they offer.
Jefferson Elementary School has been environmentally active for the past several years. During 2010-11, we were involved in sustainability in ways such as these:
- Our 2010 summer field trip program revolved around environmental awareness, with trips to the Wolf Conservation Center, Sheldrake Environmental Center, and Westchester Recycling Center
- The school library media specialist successfully participated in Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots organization’s 2010 North America Training Summit as a Group Leader
- Mr. Andrews’ 4th grade class collected and recycled one year’s worth of bottle caps through a program sponsored by the Aveda company
- Together with the American Heart Association, Jefferson applied for a grant from the USDA to establish a school garden
- Earth Week 2011 was declared a teaching week for the environment, the school community actively participated in a national poster contest, and all were encouraged to wear green on Friday of that week.
Columbus Elementary School
Recycling Rangers (5th grade club) have been recycling our paper waste for the last 6 years. The Rangers collect the paper twice a week and report to the school on a weekly basis about our efforts, ways to improve, ideas for reducing our carbon footprint in school and at home. A few years ago the Rangers wrote letters to the superintendent because they were told to stop recycling due to a lack of a district-wide paper pickup procedure. Their letters included convincing facts and reasons why recycling needs to be a school-wide effort; all recycling was thereafter restored. The Rangers tackled a real world issue and learned a lesson about citizenry and stewardship.
Columbus Learning Pond - The Water Watchers and Greenhouse Gardeners (both 5th grade clubs) maintain our pond, greenhouse, aquarium and gardens. The idea of Place-Based Education is enhanced by using our school’s surroundings as a living laboratory. The entire school benefits from the use of our pond ecosystem, gardens and composting efforts. Learning about aquatic food chains can include a visit to the pond for collections and observations.
Environmental literacy has become an integral part of our science program:
Our second grade has been learning about Monarch butterfly migrations to Mexico and back. They also have learned that the adult butterfly will only lay eggs on milkweed plants. They have germinated dozens of milkweed plants that will be planted outside in time for when the Monarchs arrive back in New Rochelle.
As part of our fifth grade study of energy, the students analyzed renewable and nonrenewable energy in the United States. They compared benefits with risks and long term costs. As part of an engineering component, the fifth graders designed, built and tested wind turbines. They have also been involved in a 5 year, long-term study of Glenwood Lake. The students test the temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and nitrogen levels in the lake. This data is submitted to the World Water Monitoring Day Citizen Scientist program. We also have shared our information with the Glenwood Lake Association. Again the importance of understanding the health of a water ecosystem that is in our "backyard" is stressed so that students understand human impacts on these environments. They then can be part of the important data collection and discussion about how to make environmental changes that benefit our ecosystem.
Trinity Elementary School
- Sponsored an assembly with “Bash the Trash”.
- Ran an essay contest on the native-American saying: We do not inherit the Earth form our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
- Showed the movie Home during recess on cold/snowed days.
- Held its second eco-conscious annual staff appreciation luncheon.
- Provides two boxes for students, teachers, staff and parents to drop off used batteries and cartridges for recycling.
Below are listed some of the classroom efforts taking place at Trinity:
Energy being conserved by:
- Classes taking place with the lights off (sun permitting)
- Opening windows instead of turning on the AC (weather permitting).
- Turning off lights and electronic devices not in use.
- Weekly recycling of plastic and aluminum containers from snack time.
Resources being conserved and reused by:
- Reusing “old papers” for printing homework assignments on the unused side.
- Writing on the front and back of each sheet, crossing out mistakes and starting over on the same sheet instead of getting out a new piece of paper.
- Disposing of paper in the recycling bin.
- Picking up crayons & pencils from the floor so they don't get thrown away.
- Recycle crayon stubs by melting them and turning them into candles.
- Making art projects with reused materials (milk and egg cartons, paper rolls, newspapers…).
- Encouraging children to bring lunch/snacks in reusable lunch boxes.
- Limiting the use of Styrofoam lunch trays by bringing paper plates form home.
Beautification and air purification by:
- Planting flowers every year around the building.
- Having, learning about and taking care of plants in the classrooms.
- Promoting Walk to School Wednesdays.
Sustainability concepts being taught by:
- Using lessons plans from GEF.
- Focusing on the three R's - Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Participating in sorting trash into garbage and recyclables.
- Producing a video segment for Trinity Today promoting Earth Day 2011.
- Reading books (Recycle by Gail Gibbons, I Can Save The Earth by Alison Inches Michael Recycle by Ellie Bethel), watching videos and holding class discussions on sustainability.
- Each grade has created at least one artwork with recycled materials… inspired by artists like Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson and Jean-Michel Basquiat.
- Making posters and writing persuasive essays convincing others to Go Green.
Daniel Webster School
We joined a group called “Cool the Earth”, based in California, and shared their mission to slow down the carbon foot print in every area of our lives.
Through this program’s motto—“EVERY ACTION COUNTS”, kids lead their families in teaching and taking action to reduce carbon emissions. We launched this program with an awesome kick-off assembly, performed by teachers and students to show the kids how human activities are raising levels of carbon dioxide and heating up the mother earth.
As part of the “cool the Earth” program, we distributed an action coupon book to every kid in school, which contains simple energy-saving tips and easy steps families can take to help fight global warming. Once a student and their family have taken an action listed on a coupon they return it to school and the actions are counted. We displayed a big chart in the lunchroom to measure the number of actions.
Aside from Cool the Earth program, we encouraged kids to reduce the waste at lunch. Among them, we sold stainless steel water bottles in the blue and yellow school colors and logo.
We also weighed the amount of lunch waste by physically having the kids hold the trash bags. We plan to return to school and weigh it again to see the improvement in reduction. This helped the kids to visualize how much trash we make and where they all go to and becoming more self-conscious about wasting food and materials.
We are collecting broken crayons that are shipped away to be sorted and recycled then sold as Crazy Crayolas. The company employs people with developmental disabilities to sort the crayons in preparation for melting them down.
We have created a recycling squad that collects paper from each class' recycle bin. The paper is then dumped into large bins that are carted away.
The Modified 4th Grade Kaleidoscope has been reading articles, viewing videos, reading books related to environmental issues of the day. Each student will choose a topic of his/her choice and research it. In June, students will present their projects to fellow students, parents, and administrators. (Ex. topics: green energy, global warming, glacial melting, endangered or invasive species, climate change, etc). Projects can be informational power points, inventions, magazines, reports, videos, etc.
