My blog from Houston, Texas. Updated most weeks, usually on Sundays.
Almost as soon as I arrived to take up my duties as Head of School at Awty, I saw a need to improve the awareness and practice of environmental sustainability in the school. I quickly decided to take the initiative and create a new role in the school – Sustainability Coordinator. Having made that decision, I consulted with my senior leadership team to seek their advice on who might be a good person to fill the new role.
Ms Kristi Winegarden’s name soon shot to the top of my list. As the supervisor of an existing environmental service group that was helping with the rehabilitation of degraded fluvial environments within Houston, Kristi’s enthusiasm for promoting environmental awareness and sustainable practices was legendary. To my delight, she immediately accepted my invitation to become our founding Sustainability Coordinator, and quickly moved to establish and chair an ongoing sustainability committee of staff, parents and students, establish a viable student-run recycling program, raise awareness of energy use, establish a campus vegetable garden, reduce the use of disposable plastic bottles, and much much more.
I acknowledge that I am widely known for being optimistic and enthusiastic when I engage in “the vision thing”, but even I have been in awe of the transformation we have seen Awty as the phrase “Awty’s Going Green” has become an increasingly widespread mantra.
Under Kristi’s leadership, Awty is now a registered Eco-School, and we are going to apply for their Bronze Award accreditation this year. The Eco-Schools program has three award levels of accreditation, Bronze being the lowest, Silver being the middle level, with the top award not being not gold, but a Green Flag. Our ultimate goal is of course to gain the Green Flag, and the Bronze Award is our first step toward reaching this goal. (As a side note, only four schools in Texas have Bronze Award status, and no schools in Texas have yet received a Green Flag).
The Eco-Schools program outlines seven seven steps we need to take to gain the Bronze Award accreditation. We are well on our way to satisfying most of these steps. One of these important steps is documenting how sustainability is linked to the curriculum, and Eco-Schools has outlined 11 pathways it considers important. The idea is that when we say ‘sustainability’ at Awty, we will be able to describe how of these pathways is represented in our students’ lives:
1.Biodiversity
2.Climate Change
3.Consumption and Waste
4.Energy
5.Global Dimensions
6.Healthy Living
7.Healthy Schools
8.School Grounds
9.Sustainable Food
10.Transportation
11.Water
In an e-mail I sent to all the faculty and staff this week, I invited the recipients to share the ways they are integrating any (or all) of these 11 pathways into the students’ lives at Awty. I am hoping that faculty might share things like teaching climate change in the classroom or community outreach like tree planting. Staff might share ways they are making our school grounds more sustainable, or features of our school food. More details about the Eco-Schools program can be seen at www.nwf.org/Eco-Schools-USA.aspx.
In other sustainability initiatives, our Sustainability Committee will be purchasing reusable, stainless steel, BPA free, mugs for all faculty and staff in the next few weeks. The aim is to stop using throw-away paper cups, a worthy goal as we use thousands of these each month at significant financial and environmental cost. The mugs will work in our coffee machines, they have lids to prevent spilling and they will come with a label so everyone will know which mug belongs to whom.
We have teamed up with CenterPoint Energy to install several smart meters to display and record the energy use in two of our buildings around the campus. Energy usage can now be seen in real time on two new HAN devices (one in the reception area of the new Levant Foundation Building, and one in the Lower School hallway. The different patterns of energy use in the two buildings have been nothing short of startling, with the new building out-performing the old one in terms of energy efficiency to a remarkable extent.
For several years now, Awty has worked in partnership with ConocoPhillips to conduct sustainability initiative competitions. These were coordinated for several years my the Deputy Head of the Upper School, Mr Robert Sload, although they have now become the responsibility of Kristi Winegarden and the Sustainability Committee. This year, a teacher grant has been added to provide funding to make classrooms, the curriculum, or the Awty campus more green.
In the pre-school, our children have started using hydration stations and reusable water bottles, which has decreased the amount of plastic used on campus. It has had a major impact in reducing the use of bottled water, and to extend the environmental benefits to our preschoolers, we are in the process of ordering trays for the pre-school that will eliminate the 236 Styrofoam plates they currently throw away each day for lunch.
In the Lower School, students are also being encouraged to use reusable water bottles instead of plastic bottled water. All 3rd grade students in the International Section are participating in Cylinder Gardening with the Houston Master Gardeners, and the result is an amazing assortment of vegetables growing in the school garden.
The Sustainability Committee is not resting on its laurels. They would like to plant trees between the school and the I-10 in order to block some of the noise and air pollution, and they are inviting suggestions or comments on this plan.
The photo at the top of this blog shows the Awty Green Team at the Arbor Day tree planting at Memorial Park held last Saturday (26th January). The group’s leader, Ms Kristi Winegarden, is in the front of the group, while Houston’s mayor, Ms Annise Parker, is in the middle (she is the only one not wearing a white Green Team t-shirt). The group is standing in front of the 3 millionth tree planted. (Thank you to the APPA’s Sustainability Liaison, Ms Leslie Nogaret, for the photograph).
I suspect that despite these considerable achievements, the lion’s share of the Sustainability Committee’s work still lies ahead of them. I would like to take this opportunity to thank and salute the work of our Sustainability Committee: Sakina Ali, Lynda Clemmons, Linda Doolittle, Chantal Duke, Reema Kasavich, Soraya Mohammed, Leslie Nogaret, Susan Permenter, Maritza Ramos, Lucy Randel, Randle Seymour, Erika Watson, and of course, Kristi Winegarden.
Becoming greener and greener
Sunday, 3 February 2013