Meeting on Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Yesterday evening, from 4:30 to 6:00, I attended my school district's Environmental Awareness Committee meeting. It is the second time I've attended a meeting and I was inspired to write about the experience.

The first item on the agenda after introductions was to have Hart Middle School present about what its environmental club has been doing on campus. Two girls from the club attended, and one read a well-written account of her school's green experiences over the past semester. They have a garden, a compost system and food scrapping program, modeling after another middle school in the district. The representatives from the middle school were wearing the neatest t-shirts: a design of a tree and its branches that spelled out the name of the school. The twisting branches spelled "ecology club." The woman who drew the design was at the meeting, too. Our environmental club needs to get some of those!

The committee is comprised of teachers, parents, a school board member (my dad), PTA members, and students. Representatives from Hearst Elementary, Hart Middle, Amador Valley High, Vintage Hills Elementary, Walnut Grove Elementary, Valley View Elementary and Lydiksen Elementary were present. Last night's meeting included ideas of what to do for Earth Week in April, grant opportunities, and updates from different school sites on what they are doing.

I updated the committee on the garden project taking place at Mohr Elementary that Amador Valley's Environmental Club is helping with. Check out my club's post about it here. Vintage Hills Elementary School is creating an event to have a used clothing drive to donate to Haiti, and later they plan on having a shoe drive through an organization called Soles4Souls, as well as a drive for used blankets and towels to donate to a local animal rescue organization. The overriding theme of the ongoing project is to raise awareness for the fact that we often have things in our homes that we no longer use or need that can be used by someone else who is not as fortunate. It's all about Reusing and Reducing!

Mr. Radulovich, former principal of Walnut Grove (mentioned here), who is very involved in making the world a greener place, brought up a new book called Sustainable Communities (edited by Woodrow Clark) that includes an entire chapter on how introducing and teaching certain concepts to children during kindergarten through high school can help create a more "sustainable community." Radulovich wrote the chapter, which is titled "Building Sustainability: The Role of K-12 Education" and which uses Pleasanton as a case study (see more information about Pleasanton's green happenings here). It's great that he was able to publish the chapter in the book and that the book will hopefully be useful for other communities looking to develop more eco-friendly practices. I totally agree that to create a culture of compassion for the Earth, we have to begin at the first levels of education, when children are still developing their opinions. College is too late, Radulovich mentioned. By that point, opinions are already established for the most part. To get kids inspired to care, you've got to show them the beauty of the natural world when they're younger.
The discussion also generated a lot of creative ideas for various activities the schools can do for Earth Week. Some were even potentially applicable at the high school level, like "No Litter Lunches," recycled art projects, and having the lights out for an hour during the school day. I will be discussing these awesome ideas at our Environmental Club's meeting this Friday.

I'm excited to see what other members post on this blog and I hope it will become a valuable resource of tips and experiences, as well as place to share the new and wonderful things the different school sites are doing.

Melissa Ott
A slightly different version of this was posted at Green Gal on January 27.