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Success story: Skyview Junior High
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Dumpster divers!
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Skyview Junior High school students check fullness of recycling container to calculate recycling rate. |
School District: Northshore
Location: Bothell
Began to participate in the Green Schools Program: 2007
Level one of the Green Schools Program: Achieved in May 2009
Waste Reduction and Recycling
As the old business school maxim says, you can only manage what you measure. Skyview Junior High has proven this tenet, to the benefit of the environment.
When the school began to participate in the King County Green Schools Program, it was difficult to determine the overall recycling rate. Northshore School District has district staff, rather than contracted haulers, collect garbage and recyclable materials. There are advantages to this operational choice. However, the way the system is currently managed, there is no way to measure through district records the quantities of garbage and recyclable materials generated by each school.
The best estimate at the beginning of the 2007-08 school year was that the school was recycling no more than 10 percent of its waste stream. Thanks to the diligent efforts of students who tracked garbage and recycling volumes, the school can now confidently say that it is recycling over 50 percent of its waste stream, and improving every day. To get there, the school undertook the following:
- Placed recycling bins in every classroom, office, break-room and next to garbage cans in common areas.
- Began to recycle in the lunchroom and kitchen areas.
- Placed recycling signs next to all recycling containers.
- Engaged students in tracking the school’s garbage and recycling volumes.
- Introduced a number of waste reduction practices, including the use of durables in the staff room and bulk condiment dispensers in the cafeteria.
- Maintained or expanded a few waste reduction practices, including durable lunch trays, reduced size and two sided printing and copying, and using single-sided paper for scrap.
- Used Eagle Eye skits, assembly activities, bulletins and staff meeting announcements to communicate conservation and waste reduction messages.
Environmental Education
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Outdoor learning center
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Students restore native habitat in Skyview’s Outdoor Learning Center by removing invasive plants and planting native plants. |
- Expanded Skyview’s remarkable Outdoor Learning Center which provided students with hands on experience in trail maintenance and restoring native habitat, including designing and digging wetlands, removing invasive plants and planting native plants.
- Developed “grounding” curriculum activities to engage seventh grade students in learning about the respective paths taken by garbage, recyclable materials, yard waste, drinking/surface water and wastewater, natural gas and electricity in their homes.
- Developed a comprehensive Sustainability Survey for seventh grade students and their families for recording and reporting ways they can reduce their ecological footprints.
Environmental Purchasing
- Green Schools team members at Skyview worked with office staff to purchase recycled-content paper, refillable white board markers, and recyclable/exchange toner cartridges whenever cost-competitive.
- The school is receiving credit from the district for its increasing recycling rate. This credit is being used to help purchase recycled paper stock and for expanded activities at the Outdoor Learning Center.
Energy Conservation
- The school identified a point person for energy conservation activities for school year 2008.
- Located a baseline data to use for next year’s efforts to conserve gas and electricity energy.
Hazardous Waste Management and Reduction
- The school’s chemical hygiene officer, John Schmied, also is a lead on the Green Schools team and is working with all district staff to eliminate or minimize hazards from cleaning supplies, science lab chemicals, art and tech supplies, and other toxins. This included a clean-out of art/ tech/ science waste in all 10 Northshore secondary schools.
- Skyview participated in the Local Hazardous Waste Management Program in King County pilot Business Hazardous Waste Disposal Program this year. John also acted as coordinator for all district secondary schools.
- Indoor air quality resources were located and initial goals and objectives developed for the year.
Comments
“Recycling is becoming a part of the Skyview Junior High culture. Our students and teachers are instinctually recycling and we believe that this practice will carry over to recycling at home. I am proud of the grassroots efforts made by teachers, custodians and students.”
– Mike Anderson, Principal, Skyview Junior High.
For more information about this school's participation in the King County Green Schools Program, contact:
Mike Anderson, Principal
E-mail: manderson@nsd.org
Telephone: 425 408 6805
John Schmied, Skyview Project Coordinator
E-mail: jschmied@nsd.org
Telephone: 425-408-6845
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