Eco-Campus

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This cornerstone was started in the Fall of 2014. Two students from the leadership team, Daniel and Efren, formed the group and began with a few goals in mind. One was to continue the Environmental Focus from last year. Students for the past few years have been encouraged to focus on different tasks throughout the week. The teachers helped with reminders and communicated the daily focus in their parent letters, etc. Monday- use less electricity, Tuesday-bring a waste free lunch, Wednesday-walk or ride to school, Thursday-whole school trash pick-up, and Friday-chose one of the four. This year was a automated year in the since that these weekly goals were accomplished independently by students and seemed almost a part of the weekly schedule. We did little advertisement, and made a reminder flyer to post in classrooms and around campus.

This year the focus was on teaching sustainability. We had a group of two bike to our campus and do a workshop on this concept. Their S.O.S. program was titled "Schools of Sustainability". It was put together by two naturalist from Occidental, California, Cory Brown and Marika Ramsden began their road trip in September 2014. They cycled from the coast of California from Crescent City to Imperial Beach and worked with 50 schools to gather footage to be made into a short film. Connecting with students and gathering great ecologically minded ideas from school communities across the state, Cory and Marika hope to inspire more schools to become Schools of Sustainability. It was exciting, and the student leadership team learned a lot from this one day workshop. The students participated in these activities:

-Short intro into SOS "Schools of Sustainability"

-Games/activities that demonstrate interconnectedness

-Short film followed by a collaborative discussion on sustainability, What does it mean?

-What sustainability projects are happening in our school community?

-What would they like to see happen?

-Script writing

-Filming 101

-Closing-Story/short film by Cory Brown.

This was a day of fun and education. They were challenged and developed some great films about taking care of our planet. We had administrator, teacher, PTA (they donated $300.00) and staff support and the students were treated to a day of awareness and connection. Four groups were formed and each made a short film of their message. We are hoping to be a part of their documentary which will be released in the Fall, 2015. They have a great website on their program, www.schoolsofsustainability.com, We thank them for their education and inspiration!

One more focus this year was to continue our school-wide Earth Day participation. Each teacher was given a packet of activities to choose. The class was able to pick the one they wanted to complete. They were varied from grades K-6th. They had choices of worksheets: bookmarks, Earth Day promise, find a friend Scavenger hunt, acrostic poem, and collage poster. They were gathered and displayed in the cafeteria. It was a great success and all of the 325 students participated!

Two remaining continuing goals from year to year are our world mural which is painted on our blacktop. They found various map activities for different grades to do while at recess. This goal will carry onto next year with teaching the map concepts and setting up a station at recess that will with stand the weather. They also continued monitoring each emergency tub in the classrooms. These tubs were restocked last year, and this year they went through each tub, and charted the contents and various needed items. We have about 25 locations of the tubs throughout the campus to assist in a emergency situation. We haven't needed them yet, but it is good to be prepared!