WONDERING WHAT THE COOL SCHOOLS 350 CHALLENGE WINNERS ARE DOING TO MAKE THEIR SCHOOLS GREENER?

The three grant winners were:

• Analy High School, Sebastopol - Students for Sustainability Club
• El Molino High School, Forestville - Green Team Club
• Montgomery High School, Santa Rosa - Green Team Club

All three school teams are primarily focusing on projects related to SCHOOL WASTE. Their goal is to set up permanent recycling or composting systems on their campuses. Their projects involve raising awareness on campus about waste and climate change and encouraging students to consciously reduce the waste they generate as well as properly dispose recyclable and food waste. They plan to organize presentations, earth day events, school contests, etc. that engage the rest of the school population.

Cool Schools is assisting all three school teams with their projects by helping students:

1. Measure their baseline that is how much waste does their school generate right now and what is the carbon footprint?
2. Set a target for reduction that is how much waste can be diverted into recycling or composting?
3. Think critically about how their activities can influence student awareness and behavior with regard to the 4-Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot).
4. Coordinate resources within the school or in the community that can help the student teams with their projects.
5. Measure the impact of their project that is how much waste has been reduced/ diverted on campus or to what extent student awareness and behavior has been influenced.

ANALY HIGH SCHOOL

The Students for Sustainability Club at Analy is doing a variety of projects. Their "three main goals" are to:

1. Make Schools (starting with Analy High School) more Environmentally Friendly institutions by improving recycling programs, ensuring that all papers products are recycled, and transforming the school into a solar powered campus.
2. Organize a seminar of Eco-Speakers. Host people involved in the Green/ Environmental movement at Analy High School to promote environmental consciousness in the student body and in the community.
3. Create a Student Volunteer Core.

This team will also be organizing their waste audit in the coming weeks. Do check back in a month's time to see their results!
Check out Analy's SFS club on Facebook.

EL MOLINO HIGH SCHOOL

Cool Schools helped El Molino's Green Team to conduct a waste audit at their school. A waste audit can provide measurements of classroom waste and cafeteria / outdoor waste for an entire day's worth of garbage generated on campus. It gives students the opportunity to investigate the types and amount of materials that get thrown away on campus.

RESULTS OF El Mo's WASTE AUDIT

Total number of students and staff at El Molino High School is 900

• Total amount of waste generated in 1 day is approx. 882 lbs!
• Waste generated per person per day is about 0.98 lbs.
• At least 24% of the trash pile could have been recycled and another 24% could have been composted, that's almost 50% of their trash that could be diverted from the landfill!

You can see more photos of the audit HERE.

In the following weeks, El Molino's Green Team students will be taking on the challenge of educating their peers about the importance of the 4-Rs related to waste:
REDUCE, RE-USE, RECYCLE AND ROT (COMPOST)

They helped organize a school-wide assembly on climate change that will take place on March 05, 2010, presented by Alliance for Climate Education or ACE, a non-profit based in Oakland that gives free multi-media presentations on climate change to high schools.

The team plans to launch a school-wide educational campaign and activities to encourage students to dispose recyclable and waste material into the appropriate bins. They will try to procure more recycling bins and a compost bin at the cafeteria to divert food waste into a compost pile that will be set up near the garden area.

MONTGOMERY HIGH SCHOOL

The Green Team at Monty helped organize a school-wide assembly on climate change in January 2010. They invited Alliance for Climate Education (ACE). The assembly was a great success and the team now has 100 students who have joined their facebook page in support of their cause! They are now getting ready to perform their waste audit before spring break in March and organize Earth Week in April. Do check back in a month's time to see their results!

Now you can DO A WASTE AUDIT AT YOUR SCHOOL!

Follow these simple steps to get started:

• Download these files and read through to familiarize yourself with the waste audit exercise. "How to Run a Waste Audit" "Waste Audit Worksheets" (sourced from: Earth Team)
• Explain the importance of the waste audit exercise to the school principal/ administration and request for permission to do the audit.
• Explain the process involved to do the waste audit exercise to the school custodian and janitorial staff and request them for tools that you can borrow for doing the audit such as gloves, tarpaulin mats, shovel, rake, broomstick, cleaning spray, water hose, trolley or cart, etc. (list provided in the waste audit handout). Some items such as gloves may need to be purchased.
• Explain the waste audit exercise to your student club/ class and Recruit 15 to 20 student volunteers and 2 teacher supervisors to help with the process. The audit exercise begins with collecting the waste, followed by getting set-up to do the audit, sorting, weighing, cleaning up at the end of the audit, and ends with analyzing the results of the audit.
• Pick two consecutive days to complete the collection and audit process. Inform the school administration and school custodian of the chosen dates. Collection takes about an hour and the Audit takes about 2 hours to complete. So, after collecting the waste at the end of one day, store all the bags in a closed room and perform the audit on the following day when you have 2 (uninterrupted) hours available.
• Purchase some snacks for before and/or after the audit exercise (if it's for after, make sure everyone washes their hands really really clean!!)
• (Optional, Recommended) After collecting the waste (and before performing the audit) you can form a "trash pile" at a prominent and central location in the school such as the quad, during school hours for everyone to see. Preferably make the trash pile in the same location where you will be doing the audit. Use a big enough tarp sheet to pile the trash. Put caution tape all around the trash pile along with a couple of creative posters next to it.
• (Optional, Recommended) Recruit one or two students to document the waste audit exercise through photographs and a video recording. This can be used later in creative ways as part of your educational campaign.