Thursday, November 29, 2012

TSHS - Making a Difference!


On Tuesday, November 19th, the TSHS Sustainability Ambassadors (Green Team) completed their November Adopt-a-Road event on the Summit-Landsburg Road near TJH.  In a 2 hour period, we cleaned up a 1.6 mile stretch and picked up 12 bags of garbage and recycling.  These kids clean up their adopted road twice yearly during  November and May.  This was our 7th event since adopting this stretch of road in 2009.

Participating in the clean-up were:  Anthony R., Jen L., Kylin F., Esmay J., Cassandra Ho, Paige T. and Clare N.  Not pictured is Maddy T.


Thanks to the TSHS Green Team Leader for this post!


Wednesday, November 28, 2012

TMS Green Team Gets to Work!


Our Green Team is in action! We've gotten the team together and we're ready to get moving at Tahoma Middle School. So far, we've chosen a t-shirt design, started a school vegetable garden, and we are in the process getting a PowerPoint to help advertise our club into motion. We're getting a great start in kicking off the year and plan to have a big impact. We're very excited about the garden, so the students at our school can have fresh vegetables to eat with their lunch. The PowerPoint will bring attention to the Green Team and maybe even get some sixth graders to join the cause. We all share the planet we live on, so we must take care of it!

Thanks to Green Team Leader Jenessa W. for this post!




NEW! 
Green Teams at TMS
  • Compost Team
  • Education Team
  • Garden Team
  • Recycling Team
  • Yearbook Team

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

A Curious Rain Garden


Last year students at the Shadow Lake Elementary started to dig a rain garden at the front of the school. They added special plants to help the rain garden filter the water. Then they attached the drain pipe that came off the roof with Mr.  Donaldson’s help and buried it in the soil. When the rain started coming down the water wouldn’t drain {see picture on right}. We waited over the summer to see what happened.

When we returned the next year, the rain garden was dry. About five weeks into school, a Caterpillar came to dig the rain garden deeper because the students couldn’t. Since the rain wouldn’t drain, we suspected that there was a clay vein or a high water table in the ground.

To test those theories, Mrs. White’s class collected some data on October 16th, 2012. First Mrs. White put a yard stick in the deepest part of the rain garden and used rocks to make it stand up. Second, Mrs. White put a hose next to the yard stick and then turned the water on. Our class went out every fifteen minutes to see if the water was draining, we also took 5-7 pictures. Each time we checked on the rain garden the water height was 0 to 1 inches high so the rain garden is draining.
After a rainy week we went outside to see if the rain garden was still draining and it was. There wasn’t a clay vein based on our experiment but there might be a high water table.

Shadow Lake will continue monitoring the rain garden while it is raining to see if it drains. Clearly this rain garden is a curious one!



Thanks to Mrs. White's Class and Green Team for this Post!

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Global Academy Students Trip to the Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility in Ellensburg



Students from THS’ Global Academy journeyed over the mountains to Ellensburg and Puget Sound Energy’s Wild Horse Wind and Solar Facility last week.

The trip was part of Global Academy’s study of different types of renewable and nonrenewable energy, climate change, and carbon.


Students toured the visitor’s center, listened to a presentation on wind energy and what PSE is doing at Wild Horse, got to get up close and touch a blade from a wind turbine, and had the chance to enter the base of a turbine.

Students blogged about the trip, and their thoughts on energy usage at pugetsoundoff.org/group/tahoma-global-academy