The Go Green Initiative's School of the Week: Robert Graves Elementary in Port Ewen, NY!
by Kenny Luna, North Babylon, NY on 11.12.07
Well folks, the Go Green Initiative’s School of the Week honors go to the Robert Graves Elementary School in Port Ewen, New York! They became a “Go Green” school back in February and have been hard at work ever since to get their 440 students and their parents involved making a difference.
As just one great, unique thing they’re doing to teach kids and make a difference take the fact that their vermi-composting efforts center around the need to grow fresh, organic vegetables for the school turtle; a 150 lb. “sand turtle” that has free run of the school hallways!
They based their plan on the classroom activity book, “Worms Eat My Garbage”. Purchasing 1 pound of red worms and organized a bin, bedding, recording, weighing system, and feeding arrangements. Now the kids enjoy feeding their classroom food scraps to the worms, and watching how the product can make those organic vegetables grow.
Taking it one step further, they constructed Worm Observation Chambers in 6 classrooms so the children may look at the habits of night crawlers and earthworms as well. Thanks to the generosity of parents in the district, second-hand aquariums were donated along with the soil and leaves needed to help them feel at home, and the 4th graders’ worked side by side with Kindergarteners’ to assemble the projects. Teaching both sets of kids how important it is to work with people of all shapes and sizes…
They’ve also implemented a cardboard and metal recycling program where parents take the school’s cardboard to the local recycling center in order to teach the children about volunteer service work while spending time at the recycling center. The resultant funds being used by the school for the children’s environmental projects and fieldtrips.
And in case you’re wondering what they’re planning down the road, they’ve got a rummage sale coming up to encourage recycling of used goods, and are working on a “No Waste Lunch” program to encourage kids to reduce the waste generated by their lunches by bringing them in lunchboxes and taking home the leftovers…
Congrats to Robert Graves Elementary in Port Ewen, NY!
See also::
Last Week's School of the Week, Barbara Bush Elementary in Grand Prairie, Texas!
Jill Buck, The TH Interview
via:: The Go Green Initiative
Now this is what I call a real school involvement with their surroundings. Not just the kids, but the entire community is learning to reduce waste and having greener pravtices in their daily life. Very good!
Way to go! I would love to be able to get this started here in AZ. Did this start through the PTA program, or through the school district itself? Wonderful and innovative idea! Way to bring the community closer too. Kudos.
Thanks to TreeHugger and the Gogreen Initiative from all the Citizen Scientists at Robert Graves Elementary School for printing our story. If we can help any other schools get set up, we would be happy to do so - email michellehiggins2002@yahoo.com