•  

    Pillar III

    Provide Effective Environmental and Sustainability Education, Incoporating STEM, Civic Skills and Green Pathways

     

    Environmental & Sustainability Education 
    Examples:

     Fourth grade participates in a river trip twice a year that enables students to explore, discover and examine findings at our local river. We have been awarded and recognized as a River Friendly Certified School.

     

     Fourth graders at Holland Brook School extended their electricity unit in science by investigating how much electricity different electric devices use.  The devices included desktop and laptop computers, a hair dryer, a cell phone, and lamps with LED and incandescent bulbs.  The "Watts Up" electricity activity challenged students to predict which devices use the most electricity, then to measure electricity usage from a watt meter.  They used their multiplication skills to calculate the kilowatt hours each device used.  Many of the students were surprised to see how much electricity the devices used when left on for a long period of time.  The activity ended with a reminder that students have the power to conserve electricity by turning lights and electronics off when they are not using them both at home and at school.


    Incoporating STEM
    Example:

    Our school is unique in that each grade level has a class (Innovation & Design) once per week that incorporates STEM into each lesson. We also transformed a new classroom into our Discover Lab (Maker Space) to encourage student exploration. 

    The goal of our Innovation and Design class is to promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning, innovative thinking and creative problem solving. This class is designed to promote a problem-based course of study where students are presented with a problem and work to design a solution for the problem. In our Discover Lab, students work as scientists, mathematicians, engineers and artists to carrying out inquiry-based investigations.

    Project examples:
    ID Class     - Creating recycled race cars out of recycable materials

    Discover Lab - Up-cycling - Creating jump ropes out of plastic grocery bags to use in Physical Education class during the Healthy Heart Initiative  

     

    Green Pathways

    Studenets learn about and exhibit ways of going green through recycling, reusing materials, reducing waste and elecricity.

    Examples: 
    Turning off computers and lights when not in use

    Brining reusable water bottles and using during the schoolday - use of water refilling station

    Bringing and using re-usable lunch boxes and containers to lunch

    Composting and recycling durign lunch periods