Trash Trackers and Garden Club

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     The Emphasis of this cornerstone was Reduction of trash, and using compost in our garden to possibly produce food for our cafeteria snacks and lunches. Daily lessons on "what to do with our trash after we eat our snack or lunch", was necessary. Trash reduction has been a long time focus of the school. We have data for the past 6 years to measure our ability to reduce our wet waste (uneaten food, and trash with  food contamination from our meals), increase our recycling and separate our empty milk cartons and juice boxes. The group did an initial pre-audit of our trash within our 3 categories, wet waste, recycle, milk and juice boxes.

     We have formed a team of six student leadership boys. They began by posting signs that signified how trash should be sorted. They made a schedule and made sure 2 people were out at the lunch periods. Then we held an all school assembly to present our new trash bin that we won last year in the Earth Month Challenge Contest for Eco-Campus. This was a positive introduction to teach the student body how important it is to reduce our daily waste and add a new category worm food.

     The Trash Trackers took great pride in making sure that students knew the categories and that they could ask the student leadership if they were unsure of which bin their trash needed to go in. With the assistance of the noon duty staff, and the willingness of the students this natural classroom became a daily success and focus. The groups goals are to begin to observe students sorting and take data on their independence. They did a post audit with a similar meal  to see it there is a reduction. They made a sculpture of the empty milk cartons for Earth Day and build it into our mascot, the mountain lion. They had help from the Magic in the Meadows group for this project. Hopefully this will illustrate the importance of drinking their milk or juice and not wasting this liquid and disposing it in the wet waste container. The most exciting news about this cornerstone is that our school is now a zero waste campus. We have joined the EJ Harrison food waste/organics program. We have a new wet waste container that students put their leftover food and any paper items in. Then three days a week the trash company picks up the container, and takes it to the Agromin Composting in Oxnard. This an exciting project to be involved in. We are one of the few schools in the county involved in a composting program. The students did their final audit and weighed 85 pounds of trash. 60 pounds of the trash went to the composting center, 15 pounds went to the land fill, and 10 pounds went to the recycle center. These were great results and will really improve our zero waste cause!

     The other group that seemed to feed into this sorting was the Garden Club. Luckily we have a well established garden club at our school that consists of David White as a committed leader. We also have dedicated neighbor gardeners, parents, and community members. Every Wednesday the garden is full of excitement with students of all ages watering, weeding, planting, harvesting, eating, and taking care of the garden. Our student leadership group consists of 4 sixth grade girls. They are dedicated club members to start with and took this knowledge to make a natural classroom. They have introduced the worm garden and a new section to sort by the Trash Trackers bins. They made an educational poster for students and staff on what to feed the worms. After they get their food they then feed the worms, and this in turn is great compost for the garden.

     In addition to feeding the worms and trying to reduce the wet waste trash from lunch the team planted a tree. With the coordination of their leader, David, the students found an apple tree that would do well in the area they had chosen. They planted "Branchy" and did a tree-planting ceremony over the intercom so the whole school could welcome this new tree. The final goal is to harvest food from the garden and with the kitchen staffs' help add it to the lunch menu for the students. Last year this cornerstone harvested 18 pounds of broccoli and the next day it was in the lunch menu for students. The present harvest is kale, beans, and tangerines. With communication and exact amounts of food needed the girls are confident they can get a harvest on the menu.

 The team had difficulty getting food from harvest to table. They wrote a letter, and had all 23 leadership students sign it. They

 then will mail it to the head of Nutrional Services for the School District. Hopefully, with this communication they will be able to share their garden harvest with their classmates.