Press

Schools Embrace Environment and Sow Debate

Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Melissa Costello, left, and Russell Greenleaf, in hat, help students garden at Scarsdale Middle School.

By WINNIE HU
Published: October 25, 2007

SCARSDALE, N.Y. — Every weekday at 2:30 p.m., a line of luxury sedans and sport utility vehicles idles outside Scarsdale Middle School in Westchester County. Exhaust fumes pollute the atmosphere, even though posted signs decree this a “No Idling Zone” and students berate their parents for violating it.

“I normally do abide by it,” said Loryn Kass, 41, as she hastily turned off her BMW sedan while waiting for her daughter on a recent afternoon. “I totally support it to keep the air clean and fresh for our children.”

The school pickup line has become the latest front in a growing school-based environmental movement that has moved far beyond recycling programs and Earth Day celebrations to challenge long-accepted school norms.

Since 2004, dozens of public and private schools in Westchester and New York City and on Long Island have adopted no-idling zones, switched to plant-based cleaners in their buildings and, to a lesser extent, banned pesticides from playgrounds and playing fields, according to Grassroots Environmental Education, a nonprofit group that began a campaign this month promoting all three measures.

Similar efforts have spread across the country. The Maryland Association for Environmental and Outdoor Education, a nonprofit group, has recognized 163 Maryland Green Schools — nearly one-third of them in the last two years — for taking initiatives like preserving wetlands, banning disposable plastic water bottles or assigning environmentally themed readings.

No effort is deemed too small. In a light-bulb exchange in Southern California, students in 26 schools in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties replaced 15,734 incandescent bulbs — and counting — in their homes with energy-efficient compact fluorescent versions. Officials and educators in California are planning the first Green California Schools Summit in Pasadena in December, expected to draw more than 2,000 school board members, administrators and teachers.

Some educators contend that the environmental focus is a waste of taxpayers’ money and a distraction for schools at a time when many students are ill-prepared for college and struggling to meet minimum standards on math and reading tests.

“Students need very basic skills, and those are so much more important than getting an emotional high because they’ve done something supposedly for the environment,” said Jane S. Shaw, executive vice president of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a public policy organization in Raleigh, N.C. She is a co-author of “Facts, Not Fear,” a 1996 book that argued that textbooks exaggerated environmental problems.

Jerry Cantrell, president of the New Jersey Taxpayers Association and a former president of the school board in Randolph, called the environmental programs an unnecessary expense, particularly for public schools facing budget cutbacks.

“The ‘ed biz’ is known for faddish endeavors,” he said. “They pick up on some new philosophy, and it seems cool and popular, and I would throw being green in with that.” But school officials counter that they have a responsibility to help students become better citizens, and that in that sense teaching them to protect the environment is no different from teaching them ethics or social norms.

“Students need to learn to give back,” said Nicholas Dyno, principal of Southampton High School, on Long Island, where graduating seniors sign a pledge saying that they will consider the environmental consequences of their future actions. Last month, at the urging of students, the school switched to a paperless attendance system that Mr. Dyno said saves 800 sheets of paper a day.

Many parents and local officials also support environmental measures at schools because of growing concerns over health risks from exhaust fumes and toxic chemicals. Last week, New York City Council members, citing asthma cases among elementary school children, proposed legislation to prohibit people from idling their vehicles more than one minute next to schools.

The green schools movement, which grew out of earlier efforts at colleges and universities, has already changed the way some schools are built. Today, an increasing number of classrooms have ventilation systems, natural lighting and automatic light and heat sensors.

The U.S. Green Building Council, which sets standards for environmentally friendly construction, has certified 60 green schools, including a new building at Sidwell Friends School in Washington that is constructed partly from recycled wine barrels. More than 400 other schools have applied for certification, and last month that number rose by one school a day.

While environmentalism does not come cheap, many school officials and parents say that building green schools or adopting recycling programs not only benefits the environment, but can also be good for the bottom line.

The largest suburban school district in New Jersey, Toms River, has spent $20 million in the past two years to install solar panels at seven schools, and plans to retrofit 11 more schools by 2012. District officials said their annual electricity bill of $3 million dropped by $239,000 in the first year alone.

Increasingly, schools have also sought to integrate environmentalism into their curriculums — the Ethel Walker School in the Hartford suburbs features a course called Literature of the American Environment — so it becomes a way of seeing and thinking about the world.

Dale Jamieson, director of environmental studies at New York University, said the green impulse in schools and in the population at large had taken on the same urgency that the civil rights movement did for an earlier generation.

“It’s a place where morality and personal life and behavior and social change all come together,” he said. “There’s this feeling it’s an important issue in everyday life.”

But Mr. Jamieson said that school initiatives intended to modify individual behavior, like no-idling zones and recycling programs, made little difference in solving complex environmental problems deeply rooted in society. He said that real change could be achieved only by, say, reducing human consumption and restructuring the world’s energy system.

“It’s like if you go to McDonald’s and order a hamburger and then recycle the packaging, that’s the most trivial thing you can do,” he said. “Because most of the environmental impact is in the meat production.”

Here in Scarsdale, the 4,700-student school district embarked on an environmental mission last year after the superintendent, Michael V. McGill, and parents here saw former Vice President Al Gore’s cautionary tale about global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth.” Shortly afterward, the district hired its first “sustainability education coordinator” to oversee green initiatives. It also added $140,000 the first year for “sustainability projects” to its $124.9 million budget.

“We have the luxury of getting involved in things like this,” said Steven Frantz, the sustainability education coordinator. “Our kids do so well that we’re not worried about the next test score, but that also comes with more responsibility.”

The Scarsdale district has rolled out an ambitious environmental agenda that includes a $7.5 million plan, set to be approved this month, to make buildings more energy efficient. It also has a rebate program in which individual schools will get back 75 percent of their savings from the district if they lower their energy costs from the year before.

At Scarsdale Middle School, students organized a No Idle Week last May, during which they handed out brochures and bumper stickers.

They have planted an organic garden, and collected cellphones and printer cartridges for recycling. The school even produced a music video, “10 Percent for the Future,” challenging people to reduce environmental waste by changing their personal habits.

Some of their efforts may be paying off. At least two families at the school have traded in their S.U.V.’s for hybrid vehicles.

“The kids are the ones, especially at this age, to latch on to things, and they get on to their parents,” said the principal, Michael McDermott. “It’s the subversive way to change adult behavior.”

Assuming, of course, that the parents are willing to change. While no one has complained directly to school officials, cars continue to idle outside the middle school and elsewhere around town.

Ellen Corrini, 13, said she scolded her mother a few weeks ago for leaving the car running:

“I said, ‘You should turn off the car; you’re not even in it.’”

Original article in the New York Times

A Visit to School Gardens in Scarsdale

September

For my upcoming story on community gardens, I stopped by a couple of great school gardens in Scarsdale yesterday. Whew, it was ridiculously hot and humid.

For a few years now, Scarsdale has been way ahead of most other school districts in the Lower Hudson Valley when it comes to gardening and sustainability programs.

All seven schools in the district (five elementary plus the middle and high schools) have outdoor year-round vegetable gardens — and very active parent volunteers who help out in the classroom and then take over the gardens, with their families, in the summer. During the school year, many of the vegetables are served to students in the school cafeterias.

One of the most impressive gardens in the district is the 7,500-square-foot organic garden at Scarsdale High School, now in its third summer. It’s run by the student Garden Club with professional assistance from Russell Greenleaf and his crew at Greenleaf Gardens.

Here’s 8-year-old Alex Arovis, one of the summer volunteer gardeners in the high school garden.

Alex and his mom, Susan, and dad, Greg, and 5-year-old sister Gabriella have taken care of a giant bed in the high school garden for the last two summers. He’s a very impressive gardener — he knows the names of everything, including diseases and insect pests.

Some of what’s growing in his bed — sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, bok choy, tomatoes, cucumbers, nasturtiums, peppers, Swiss chard, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peas and edamame.

Zinnias:

This summer, produce from the garden has gone to the Ecumenical Food Pantry of White Plains, the YWCA of White Plains and the Jan Peek House, a homeless shelter and soup kitchen in Peekskill. A couple of beds of tomatoes:

Peppers:

Here are some of the folks at Greenleaf Gardens, including Larry Hershman on the right. It was brutal out there.

A very tall stand of Jerusalem artichokes:

I think this is a bed of yacon, also known as Peruvian ground apple and related to sunchokes.

Swiss chard:

Then Russell took me over to Heathcote Elementary, where we met the Suzman family. Here’s Russ, in the hat, with, from left, Jeremy, 6, and Evan, 13, and Abigail, 9.

And that’s their mom, Ruth Suzman, on the right. I forgot to get the name of the other woman who was working in the garden. They were on their way to see “The Lion King.”

Russ used his pocket knife to give us all samples of that little melon. Delicious.

Sweet little eggplants.

Ruth had just told me how Jeremy will eat raw vegetables, like broccoli, right out of the garden. On cue it seems, he took a bite out of a tomatillo.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 at 4:42 pm by Bill Cary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Judaic teaching and nature go hand-in-hand at Solomon Schechter

April 8th, 2009

By Harriet Blake

ABC12.com GoGreen

Going green” may be all the rage these days, whether it’s at a school, hospital, office or municipality. At Solomon Schechter School in Westchester County, N.Y., “green” has been part of the philosophy from the start.

Founded in 1966, the conservative Jewish day school serves nearly 1,000 students. It incorporates the environment not just in the curriculum but in every day life, says chief operating officer Rahel Rosner.

“Our philosophy is based on the Hebrew expression “Min Ha’ Aretz,” meaning “with the earth,” she says.

“We’ve always lived with the earth, “ says Rosner, explaining that it is part of the Jewish culture. The K-12 school has two campuses – one located in White Plains for K-6; the other located in Hartsdale for 7-12. Each site is comprised of about 24 acres that are heavily wooded and well-maintained for nature walks.

“We come at green from two angles, religion and science,” says Rosner. The Judaic and science teachers offer a class, ‘About the Earth,’ in which the students have fun learning how religion and science work together. In one session, the kids make cheese by stirring it with a fig branch, Rosner says. “The fig tree is important in both religion and science. Figs are considered to be one of the seven species that dominated the diet of the Jews in biblical Israel. They were one of the staple foods. This way the kids understand how they are part of the earth.”

Even a simple thing as eating has meaning, says principal Nellie Harris. “Our Jewish texts call on us to be mindful of the food that comes from the earth and not take it for granted. Eating is a sacred event, it is not mindless, but mindful.” She points that out that the eating of kosher food, which minimizes the eating of animals, has this mindfulness at its core.

Rosner, who has been with the school about five years, is very proud of the school’s two 50-kilowatt solar panel systems. A third system is planned for this summer. The panels were made possible in part with state funding. “We generate electricity and also sell back to the grid,” she says. The best part?

The solar installation is cost neutral, she says.

Rosner wants to spread the word to other schools about solar installations, which she says is possible despite the initial costs.

“Initially, we couldn’t afford the $500,000 solar panels,” says Rosner. “But we first received a $250,000 grant from the state of New York. Then we developed a roof lease program – in conjunction with Mercury Solar, an alternative energy company — in which we lease our roof to a for-profit organization that in turn could get the tax credit. This took off another 50 percent of the cost. We were able to lock into a utility rate for the next 10 years meaning our energy rate will stay the same, no increases.”

“It’s important the schools think creatively. Don’t balk at the price because it’s possible to make $500,000 panels affordable. Many states have funding for energy programs. Then finding a company like Mercury Solar is key. They found us the for-profit partner.”

The solar panels are incorporated into the school’s physics and religion classes. “When the students study Hannakah, or the Festival of Lights,” says Rosner, “the physics of solar generation works hand in hand with their understanding of the traditional Judaic winter celebration.

The environment is also part of another Jewish holiday known at “Tu B’Shevat” that took place this year on Feb. 9. It marks the beginning of a “New Year for Trees,” celebrating spring in Israel.

At Solomon Schechter, the students and their families purchase trees that go towards reforestation, says Principal Harris. Students study maple trees and the syrup they produce. “The kids learn what the environment has to offer us,” she says.

This spring also heralds the beginning of the school’s next big initiative, the garden project.
“Currently we serve lunch to 750 kids per day on each campus,” says Rosner. “We generate significant waste and consume a lot of vegetables and fruit since our menu is primarily fish and vegetarian-based. We’ve looked at the cafeteria in terms of sustainability, specifically in terms of waste, consumption and our carbon footprint.

“We [estimated] that we needed a significant amount of food delivered two to three times a week [but] we’ve had a hard time attracting local growers for such large numbers.”

Instead, the school has chosen to undertake growing its own produce, with the help of Greenleaf Gardens Inc., a nonprofit organization that offers garden-based education in sustainability to New York State residents through community gardens.

Founder Russell Greenleaf, 26, started the organization with his wife in 2005. (And yes, that is his real name.) He’s impressed with Solomon Schechter, who approached him a few months ago. “They’re already doing a lot,” he says. “They already have a greenhouse and already have healthy food options for the students, very nutritious menus that include lots of vegetables and fruits.”

Greenleaf’s nonprofit group works with communities on establishing food producing and ornamental gardens. “We help kids learn to work with nature, showing them the interdependence we have with nature. A garden is a perfect metaphor for sustainability. My role, as gardener, is to help coordinate everything.”

Food growing, says Greenleaf, is an integral part of sustainability. It connects human beings with nature. “I’m not training kids to be horticulturalists,” he says, “but in order to build sustainable communities, we need to learn to take care of each other. Just as in nature, every component takes care of each other.”

Greenleaf’s group works with schools, and also with detention centers. At the centers, he teaches gardening as a future job skill. When he works with schools, especially those in affluent Westchester County, New York, he emphasizes leadership skills. “I want them to focus less on ‘me’ but on ‘we.’

These are the kids who will grow up to become tomorrow’s leaders.”

“Teaching them at a young age is key. They ‘get it’ quick. They feel the compassion because they haven’t been part of the world just yet,” says Greenleaf.

The plan at Solomon Schechter is to grow food over the course of three growing seasons per year, says Rosner. The school will begin with a summer garden that will be planted in June, timed to Father’s Day with the hopes of getting both students and parents involved. The winter garden will be planted in August and the spring garden, planted in April. Rosner says they expect to generate about 1,500 pounds of food per growing season.

“Our intent,” she says, “is to consume two-thirds of what we produce and donate the remaining third to the local food bank.”

The garden will be located adjacent to the middle school (the middle and high school are part of the upper school campus) and will receive sunlight throughout the day. The area will be fenced off to protect the plants from deer and other wildlife. There also will be a composting pile, which the school has not done before.

“We’re piloting the garden at the upper school campus because we have more able-bodied students at that age level and they tend to eat more. But in six to eight months, we’ll get started on the lower school,” says Rosner.

The garden’s organizing committee is composed of the art, science, social studies and Judaic studies teachers. “It will be a collaboration across disciplines,” says Rosner. Besides the science and religion aspects, students will learn to write about the garden as part of their social studies and work on still-life drawings as part of their art classes.

There will be some fundraising associated with the garden project, mostly for farming equipment. Parents have already come forward with offer to help till the soil, build fences, cut back bramble and put in mulch, says Rosner.

“There’s an energy in this country, people want to get involved. They want to get their hands dirty and it sets a great example for the kids,” she says.

Speaking of setting an example, Rosner says she applauds First Lady Michelle Obama for planting a vegetable garden at the White House. “She is a great role model ,” says Rosner. “And her timing in terms of our garden is great. ‘Thank you, Michelle!’”

Education blooms in school gardens
THE JOURNAL NEWS

By DAVID MCKAY WILSON
DMWILSON@lohud.com
On the Web (Original publication: June 7, 2006)

When Judy Stemtob's third-grade class came to the Scarsdale Community Garden to plant kale, peas, and tomatoes, the students were working on a project that reached across several disciplines. At first glance, the Quaker Ridge Elementary School students were studying biology and the life cycle of plants. But before they planted, Stemtob had students recite sonnets and quatrains they had written about gardening. They had sketchbooks to draw the raised beds. They brought along a pot of plants they had started in the classroom: a combination of plants called the Three Sisters, with corn, beans and squash, which the Algonquin Indians lived on for centuries. "It's great to learn about plants and learn how they grow," third-grader Richie Gutierrez said. "We learn that it's OK to get your hands dirty." The multidisciplinary lesson in Scarsdale is among many being taught during the spring at gardens at or near schools throughout the Lower Hudson Valley. At dozens of schools, students are digging in the schoolyard soil, planting vegetables and flowers in projects that teach them about an array of academic subjects. It's also a way to educate students about the nutritional benefits of fresh produce.

Greenleaf Gardens Inc. is delighted by Your contribution and supportwhich willl strengthen and make possible the programs we are assisting and developing in low income and neglected communities throughout Westchester and NYC. EVERY DOLLAR SUPPORTS PROGRAMMING. To support a specific program please contact us to discuss your vision or particular area of interest. We encourage all donors to contact us to arrange a visit to the gardens. We are a federal 501 c 3 non profit charitable organization. Your Donation is tax deductable. We will gladly provide thank letters of receipt on Greenleaf Gardens Inc. Letterhead for your records.

GreenleafGardens@hotmail.com