Green Team Field Day Booth @TJH

The TJH Green Team ran a “Skee-Ball” booth during the annual Field Day on Tuesday, June 20th. Students who wanted to play the game were required to either answer an environmental question or fill out a feedback survey based on their own habits that affect the environment. Along with the game, the Green Team put their accomplishments and goals for next year on a trifold board. Plus, they had a clipboard to encourage students to sign up for the club next year. In the spirit of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”, members sought donations of gently used stuffed toys from staff to give out as “prizes” for high point winners. Thankfully, we received over 75 toys. The game was a big hit! The junior high students enjoyed the chance to fill out a survey or answer a green practice question, and the fact that they could win a prize motivated more students to participate and learn about their work.

Guest Blog by Student Green Team Leader, Kathryn

A Day at the Market - GPES Green Team

GPES Green Team shows off their work at the Maple Valley Farmer's Market

On Saturday, June 23 the Glacier Park green team and garden club set up a booth to spotlight this years accomplishments and to share bottle cap art.  Children and parents could screw recycled bottle caps onto a beautiful sunflower pattern.  Our local farmer's market is located at Rock Creek Elementary and operates every Saturday from June 16th to October 6th.  Check out the wonderful displays and selection of products from our local/regional family farmers, vendors, and local business owners.  The Farmers' Market is a great community gathering place.  As the Green Teams found out this last Saturday - it's the place to be!

Thanks to Cathy Haws, GPES Green Team Leader

Green Team Leaders Reflect and Plan

Student and Staff Leaders from Tahoma, Cle Elum, and Seattle share sustainability practices and collaborate across districts with support from E3 Washington, work sponsored from a grant from the Boeing Company.   

“Sustainability is not a proposal for the future, not a problem from the past, but a solution created by the present,” Paul Hawken once said. This was the conclusion many drew from a Green Team Lead gathering held in McKinstry. District Officials, students, and Green Team Advisors from every campus attended this day of reflection held at McKinstry on June 21, 2012. Kim McHenry said “I’m excited that the Green Teams throughout the district are getting this opportunity to network today and talk about success as well as challenges.” Although it was held right after school was over there was a certain excitement and energy in the air, because everyone that attended was passionate about their cause. Many Green Team Advisors were happy to finally see their counterparts in other schools. With the new proposal to have Voice over Internet Protocol communication systems within the district, Dawn Wakeley states “Folks [Green Teams] work hard because they are in isolation, collaboration will help solve larger problems.” After hearing from all 8 campuses, Tahoma was able to see what steps they could take to promote their sustainability education and stewardship. Integration was the largest step in the process. With the addition of guest speakers the students were able to see the importance of sustainability education in their futures. Also helping the staff analyze the success of Tahoma’s current curriculum as well as future initiatives to pursue. The meeting gave an amazing insight to see what other school districts are doing, and also to reflect on better strategies that Tahoma could take. While analyzing our current practices we also brainstormed ideas to pursue. The realization that we create the future today hit everyone that attended and the compelling sense of action drove future talks.

Guest Post by Student Green Team Leader, Jayaram

THS Students Bring Sustainability Lessons to RCES

The seniors at THS got to apply their knowledge of sustainability by designing and planning a lesson that would engage our elementary students in a cross-age teaching experience that was fun for seniors and elementary students alike!

Seniors worked in teams to create a lesson focusing on one aspect of sustainability – everything from protecting coral reefs to water quality to living sustainably through growing a vegetable garden and using energy-efficient and energy-saving products around students’ homes.  When the seniors got to the classroom they setup stations and the elementary kids rotated through each lesson.

“I think this is a really impactful experience for seniors,” Lydia, a THS senior, said. “We’re going to be going out into the real world, we need to think about how we will be using this.”

THS senior, Lydia, teaches RCES 4th graders about products they can use to reduce energy usage at home. 

RCES 4th graders learn about endangered coral reefs and paint their own reefs, ‘back to life.’

Gabe, a RCES 4th grader takes a break from painting his reef to smile for the camera!

The cross-age teaching experience is a great chance for students of different ages to interact and learn from each other! 

Those seniors are tall!

Tahoma - 1st to Achieve Level 3

This spring, Tahoma School District became the first school district to be recognized as a Level Three Green School District by completing that level’s water conservation criteria. The district also completed Level Two during this past school year by focusing on energy conservation. All eight Tahoma School District schools have completed Level One and Level Two, and five of the schools also have completed Level Three. This accomplishment can be owned by many in our district, but leading the way in this effort on meeting the standard for a Green District is our operations department under the leadership of Lori Cloud. Our building custodians have been integral in this effort, leading the way in many of the cost saving measures involving energy and water use. A partnership between student Green Teams and custodial staff have made huge differences in the amount and types of waste generated with recycling programs at every school and composting at most schools.

Great job to the students and staff in Tahoma!

You are making a difference in our world.

GPES: Recycling #1 for May

The amazing Green Team at Glacier Park Elementary was notified today that they have collected the most drink pouches of any school in Washington State in the month of May!  Students collect and send in these drink pouches for recycling/reuse through TerraCycle.  Great Job to the Drink Pouch Brigade, GPES is one of 48 winners of the "Great Drink Pouch Derby".  

TerraCycle specializes in recyling of items that most recyclers do not accept locally.  TerraCycle has awarded the school an extra 1,000 points they redeem for cash. If the students can keep up with this level of collection year round they have a great chance to be crowned the Great Drink Pouch Derby National winner and win  50,000 BONUS POINTS.   Of course, the monetary reward is nice but the real reward is knowing how much waste the students have diverted from the landfill.