GREEN SCHOOL OBJECTIVE II:  
OPERATION, DESIGN & MAINTENANCE

OBJECTIVE 2: 
STUDENT-DRIVEN BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

OBJECTIVE 2.1:  WATER CONSERVATION / POLLUTION PREVENTION

Spring 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 - Each spring, fifth grade students head out to the stream on our school grounds to conduct a stream survey, in order to apply what they have learned in class, related to stream health surveys. They present their findings at Excellence Night. By engaging in this meaningful watershed experience right in the schoolyard, students become much more aware of the importance to conserve and preserve our water supply.

April 2015 - Students in Mrs. Muir's Technology class learned about water conservation, and then they created signs to be hung in school as reminders.

April 2014 - AES Beautification & Stream Clean-Up Day - Our awesome volunteers donned our school's new hip boots, headed down to our stream, and pulled out a lot of trash.

April 2013 - Fifth Grade Green Ambassadors participated in Howard County “20 Minute Cleanup.”  Most of the trash on our school grounds ends up in our stream.  In order to protect our stream and beautify our school yard, we got out of the classroom for 20 minutes to participate in the "20 Minute Cleanup."  Mrs. Weeks' fifth grade class chose to clean up the area around the stream, as well, to ensure the pollution would not make it to the water.

OBJECTIVE 2.2:  ENERGY CONSERVATION

2016-2017 School Year - Added to the usual classroom jobs this school year is the Conservation Commissioner.  All classrooms assign a student this job, along with all the others they have in the past.  This student is in charge of making sure no electricity is being wasted and no water is dripping from the classroom sink.  They can also take on their responsibilities in other places throughout the school.

March 2015 - Fifth Grade Green Ambassadors worked with our awesome PE teacher to put together an Earth-Friendly activity for every student in the school to engage in during PE class called Energy Savers.  The idea was for the kids to understand how much energy is conserved by doing such things as composting and recycling.  The PE part of the lesson had the kids exerting an amount of energy comparable to what could have been saved using 3Rs. At each Energy-burning station in the gym, these posters were mounted for kids to read as they did something physical in place to burn energy. Maybe next time, they'll consider the 3 Rs!!!  When students and teachers collaborate, amazing things happen!

April 2014 - An Hour Without Power - Fifth Grade Green Ambassadors came up with the idea to emphasize energy conservation - and just how easy it is to leave the lights out sometimes.  After brainstorming the details as a group, this is the email that went out to staff:

OBJECTIVE 2.3:  SOLID WASTE REDUCTION

2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 - We have recycle bins in our classrooms, but we want to make sure the recyclables are really getting thrown in the big recycling receptacle, so our awesome students take on the job at the end of each school day.

2015-2016 School Year - Serious glue and marker collection going on here with our Green Ambassadors!

Green Ambassadors also take turns working the cart to ensure everything that can be recycled actually makes its way in!

When our Green Ambassadors found out Terracycle could no longer take our juice bags for upcycling, they worked to encourage our student body to consider other options.

Still going strong, after all these years, with our Waste-Free lunch initiative!

February 2016 - In an effort to reinforce the idea of being mindful about lunch waste, fifth grade Green Ambassadors came up with the idea to make students more aware of how much they are using in recyclable and how much is reusable.  The focus was on drink containers, because, sadly, Terracycle dropped our account (along with thousands of others across the nation, due to lack of sponsors), so we pushed for reusable and recyclable drink containers.  Green Ambassadors presented the initiative at each lunch shift, and then the lunch monitors highlighted what they were seeing.

Recyclable!

Reusable!

October 2015 - Fifth graders come up with artwork for magnets teachers will hang on their door frames when their empty glue stick cans are full, so Green Ambassadors know whether or not to come into the classroom during collection time.

Thanks to our Green Ambassadors, all of these empty glue sticks stayed out of our landfills!

2014-2015 School Year - In order to ensure all of our recyclables were really making it to the larger blue cans used to take recyclables to the dumpster, we made sure students from specific classes in all grades were looking out for buddy classes so all rooms were accounted for and bins were emptied at the end of the day.

June 2013 - Empty Glue Sticks, Pens and Markers, OH MY!

Thanks to an organized system of collection containers for both empty glue sticks and writing utensils, Atholton keeps these items out of the trash.  Empty glue sticks and mechanical pencils, and dried up pens and markers get collected by fifth grade Green Ambassadors.  At the end of the school year, they get shipped off in big boxes to Terracycle and Crayola, where they get upcycled to be made into other products.  Atholton also benefits from keeping these items out of the landfill; Terracycle sends the school a check for sending these materials to be upcycled. It's a win-win!

2013, 2014, 2015 - AES Waste-Free Star of the Week

Every Wednesday at Atholton is a Waste-Free Wednesday, and that means a new Waste-Free Star of the Week will be chosen.  Once the star is spotted, photos are taken of the student and the waste-free lunch, and the student takes home a folder with the pictures and some directions.  At home, the student writes captions to go with each picture and brings them back to school to put together a bulletin board.  On the bulletin board, which is in the cafeteria, the student and his or her lunch are featured for the week, showing the pictures and captions.  This ongoing tradition has helped our school to maintain a wastefree culture when it comes to lunch - and not just on Wednesdays!

As Wastefree as Possible

Can you believe our students get to use plastic trays at lunch time?  We're glad the styrofoam has been replaced by paper trays, but since we cannot recycle the paper trays, our lunch lady uses reusable lunch trays!  This is getting the message out loud and clear to the students of AES, who are proud to be green!

Preparing our juice bags for shipping to Terracycle so they can upcycle them, and we reduce our waste production:

OBJECTIVE 2.4:  HABITAT RESTORATION

Nov. - April 2016/2017 - Fourth Grade Green Ambassadors are currently researching native plants, creating a spreadsheet with important information on each plant, and preparing to meet with a Master Gardener to nail down specific plants to order to refurbish our native garden (the Grounds people mistakenly dug a lot of our native plants up...)

April 2016 - Schoolyard Clean-Up - We are so lucky to have a schoolyard rich with habitat value, however it is not immune to human impact, so maintenance is still in order.

Here are first graders doing a schoolyard clean-up:

April 2014 - Second graders worked to restore the habitat that so many native critters on AES school grounds call home. A big clean-up always does our schoolyard - and those living there - some big-time GOOD!

OBJECTIVE 2.5:  STRUCTURES FOR ENVIRONMENTAL LEARNING

AES Trout in the Classroom - For many years, Atholton has successfully raised and released Rainbow Trout. While fifth grade Troutkeepers learn about trout and the necessity for clean water, the entire school embraces the opportunity to include the fish in science instruction. During trout season, you will often find students off all ages having science lessons in front of the tank.

February 2015 - Here are Second graders having a science class in front of the tank, recording their observations and asking great questions!

January 2014 - Here are Third graders making their first observation of the newly arrived trout eggs:

2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 - Each year, a new group of approximately 30 Fifth Grade Troutkeepers volunteer to give up one recess per week to learn about and care for Atholton's Rainbow trout.  The daily schedule for tank monitoring allows students to leave the classroom 10 minutes early at the end of the school day to run the water tests necessary to maintain a healthy habitat for the trout.

AES Rain Garden - For so many years now, our second graders have learned about the option of a rain garden during science class, as they are asked to come up with a solution to alleviate some of the erosion problems our school yard has.  Finally, their choice of a rain garden actually came true! In the spring of 2015, the community group, "READY," run by the Chesapeake Bay Alliance, installed a native rain garden in our schoolyard.  This instantly became an opportunity for environmental instruction!  Here are second graders recording diagrams and observations in their science journals while looking at our REAL rain garden!

Here is the awesome READY crew during August of 2016:

AES Outdoor Classroom - Since its construction, the Outdoor Classroom has been such a valuable outdoor space for getting outside to learn.

Here is fifth grade holding Reading class in our hidden gem in the woods:

Bird Feeders are an excellent structure for learning. Students of all ages at our school enjoy learning about, and then watching for, Atholton's beautiful songbirds.

OBJECTIVE 2.5:  RESPONSIBLE TRANSPORTATION

2014-2015 School Year - It all started with the AES Green Team's idea to get AES staff to consider carpooling to work for several great reasons - it's fun to get to know our co-workers, we save money, we save parking spots in a crowded parking lot, and best of all, we save energy, which means fewer fossil fuels!  Well, the carpooling idea was a huge success, and the great news is that, with the encouragement of our fifth grade Green Ambassadors, the students and families of AES got involved somewhere along the way as well!  Each staff carpooler was to take a selfie and email it to the Green Team to be entered into a drawing for a coffee gift card and a chocolate bar.  We had two staff members who went the extra mile (no pun intended) and actually made a video of their fun carpooling experience!  Check them out below!

Fifth Grade Green Ambassadors were proud of the staff's efforts to carpool to work. In an effort to get the student body excited about carpooling, they put together an AWESOME bulletin board for all to see and enjoy!

Let the selfies begin!

Now it's the kids' turn!  Every student first learned about Earth-friendly modes of transportation during Technology class. Then they made advertisements to post upon our painted wall tree during Earth Day Week, which was during the time we promoted carpool selfies.

Once the kids made their Earth-Friendly Transportation signs, the AES Green Team worked to get them posted on our painted hallway tree for all to see and enjoy - and as a great reminder!

April 2014 - In order to get the entire student body involved in considering Earth-friendly transportation, our Green Ambassadors put together daily announcements, interviewed staff members who had carpooled to feature them on announcements, and encouraged students to add to the carpool selfie board.

PRICELESS!

We reached out to our AES families, and they DID NOT disappoint!  Students were taking selfies left and right, highlighting the fun they can have as carpoolers and bike-riders!

March 2015 - Talk about student-driven!  Our talented artist, fifth grader Joseph, designed the graphics sent home to each student in the school for students to record how and when they use one or more form of Earth-friendly transportation. Slips sent back in were featured by the Green Ambassadors during announcements.

Fifth Graders put together a PowerPoint presentation to present to all students during each lunch shift, so they would understand our Earth-Friendly Transportation initiative - as well as other upcoming Earth Day Week activities.

Earth-Friendly Transportation Presentations - OK, so the filming was not great on this one, but what is great is that you can hear our fifth graders educating the student body on our carpool initiative - WELL DONE!!!

AND NOW LET THE STUDENT SELFIES BEGIN!!! We included bus-riders, since they are using Earth-Friendly transportation as well!

And let the bicycling begin, too!

OBJECTIVE 2.7:  HEALTHY SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT

Earth Day 2016 & 2017 - No Child Left Inside - Get Outside to Learn - By promoting the value of getting outside, AES students understand learning does not always have to take place in the space between four walls.

Here is Second grade, holding their "Author's Chair" on the front lawn of our school:

Spring 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 - During the good-weather months, our lunch monitors are so good about getting our kids outside for lunch.  A great use of the outdoor classroom - and a great way to get some extra Vitamin D for the day.

Our Outdoor Classroom is used regularly so kids can engage in learning outside of their four classroom walls.