Open the Door for Eco-Campus

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This cornerstone began at the beginning of the 2013 school year. The sixth grade student leadership team consisted of three students, Naomi, Eden, and Clarissa. We used each day to have the school focus on environmental reduction. This has continued from year to year, and it seemed that the students were very aware of the daily causes. Monday is use less electricity, Tuesday is pack a waste free lunch, Wednesday is ride your bike or walk to school, Thursday is whole school trash pick-up, and Friday is choose one of the four. The girls made announcements each morning to get the students to remember the focus for the day, and to hopefully follow through with the effort. What we found this year was the students were doing the daily focus on other days. They were using less electricity each day, and bringing waste free lunches each day they brought their lunch. We saw more students riding their bikes, and walking to school. The school was trash free and this group was also involved in the daily trash sort at lunch and snack. The group started seeing students taking ownership of their campus which was wonderful!

One of the goals we also wanted to accomplish was to build a bike roof over our bike racks. This was a difficult goal to accomplish because we needed to have many people involved; parents, administration, and the school district maintenance department. We will still try to accomplish this goal next year and try to provide shade for our bike and scooter riders. The heat and rain in our valley can be hard on bikes and scooters.

The students held an Earth Day Door Decorating contest. They wanted to highlight this annual celebration and sent out flyers to announce the theme and contest rules. This was welcomed by staff and students at Meiners Oaks. The leadership team of 16 sixth grade students went around and judged the doors. It was a difficult task, since all were great and represented the theme so well. At the end, they awarded two classrooms, one in the primary grades and one in the upper grade; they received plastic bracelets that had our school logo on them. They also awarded all classes otter pops for participation and effort.  

This group was also involved in the field trip to Agromin composting to follow our wet waste trash. We tailed our trash truck hauler, EJ Harrison, and videotaped and photographed what happens to our trash once it leaves our school. The students curiosity led to this field trip and it paid off as a incredible learning experience. We learned the step by step process of what happens to our wet waste and how it is turned into compost. It was definitely one of the highlights of the year, and showed the importance of keeping our trash sort "clean" and free of plastic and styrofoam.

One of our fundraisers was going to be buying shoelaces made from plastic bottles. We wanted to get them in our school colors and sell them to students. However, we needed to buy them in bulk of 500 laces, so we decided to try and do this next year as a fund raiser. We have a school population of 300, and felt that this needed a little more time to prep and purchase.

This cornerstone was very successful and the team really brought their message to the whole school.