Jun 5, 2008
At Katonah and Increase Miller Elementary Schools
|
Students learn about their ecological footprint
How much land does it take to support the Katonah-Lewisboro School District’s elementary schools? Students at Increase Miller and Katonah elementary schools recently spent some time finding out their ecological footprints and researching ways to reduce them, as part of programs organized by the school’s parent groups, including the Increase Miller compact team, PTA and environmental club and the Katonah PTO.
“Our overarching goal was essentially to have the children become more conscious about every decision they make,” said Janet Harckham, who spearheaded the program as the leader of the Increase Miller Environmental Club. “The goal is to show children how each choice they make has an impact, from water bottles to turning off the lights.”
The schools’ ecological footprints were generated by the Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation, based in Chappaqua, determined by information provided by the schools and students. Their conclusion was that, in order to support the 385 students at Increase Miller, 350 global hectares — about 864 acres or about 321 soccer fields worth of land — is required. For the 499 students at Katonah Elementary, 422 global hectares of land — about 1,042 acres or 388 soccer fields — would be required to support the school’s usage of paper, fuel and other resources, and contribution to global warming.
Students at Increase Miller spent the entire day on Wednesday, May 14, visiting five different stations around the school to learn about what goes into supporting their school. They were taught about the fuel used by cars and buses and the resources used by the buildings. (Increase Miller’s consumption was estimated at 800 gallons of propane, 25,000 gallons of oil and 500,000 gallons of water per year.)
A station set up in the school’s copier room taught the students how much paper was used by the school each year (about 13,333 sheets of paper per room), while one set up in the cafeteria allowed them to see how to reduce the fuel costs of their diet by eating more local foods and less packaged food and meats. According to the foundation, it takes almost 10 times as much fossil fuel to produce meat as it does to grow plant-based protein such as beans and grains.
A smaller program, for only the fifth grade, was held at Katonah Elementary School on Wednesday, May 21.
Once the program was done, the students took all the information gathered and began to brainstorm solutions, while the foundation computed the schools’ footprints from the students’ data. The school compact teams will likely be trying to implement some of the students’ ideas to reduce the footprint next year, Ms. Harckham said.
“The kids loved it,” said Ms. Harckham. “It was authentic learning, and they learned about the difficulty in making choices.” She said the stations had been run by parents and school staff, which made it an inexpensive program. The program could be expanded to other schools next year, she said, although that had not been decided yet.
Information: celfoundation.org.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
|
