Vance High School in Charlotte, NC celebrated their first “Green Week”, April 22-26. MGR’s Environmental Justice Club was able to recruit students and faculty to participate in activities to increase environmental awareness and sustainability education on campus. These events were sponsored by MGR’s GREEN Community Schools Environmental Justice Club (EJC) and by Vance’s Leadership students. Students at Vance have a passion for waste reduction so many of the Green Week events were focused on recycling education.

The activities of the week included re-vamping and decorating the school’s recycling bins, a 5-minute “blackout” where all the lights and electric devices in the school were turned off to measure energy savings, working with Emmy-nominated filmographer, Bryan Wright, to assist EJC students to capture footage in creating a recycling PSA to educate their peers about the amount of waste created at their school on a daily basis, and planting a campus garden with the help of professional gardeners.

Environmental Justice Club (EJC) students from Vance High School took their first field trip to the Mecklenburg Recycling Center! Before a presentation, they enjoyed the nice weather with a picnic lunch at a local park.  At the recycling center, they were given an interactive presentation which inspired them to return to school and educate their peers about proper recycling techniques.  After the presentation, they were able to visit a viewing station and see how recycled products are sorted and separated into barrels.  Before leaving, they discussed with Paula Hoffman, the Education Coordinator for the center, ideas to help improve Vance’s recycling program and potential recycled art projects.

Overall, it was a fun and enlightening trip and each student was able to take home a mini recycling bin at the end of the visit.  They are looking forward to their next trip and putting their education to use at Vance!

The entire student body of Vance High School has been supporting our Environmental Justice Club in so many ways!  Students from the Leadership class have adopted the V-Co Green campaign as their new project.  These amazing students have dedicated their class block every other day to help with the construction of our recycled art project.  In addition, they created posters to hang around the school to help educate on recycling.  With their help, the project of turning Vance’s trash and other waste materials into a tree sculpture to display on school grounds is coming along quite nicely.

Marilyn G. Rabb (MGR) Foundation’s Advisory Board Chair, Jayni Chase was recently featured in Woman to Woman Magazine.  Jayni had the opportunity to speak about the way in which she lives out a sustainable life highlighting the work of GREEN Community Schools.  Here are some words from Jayni on why she has embraced a green lifestyle.

“I’m involved in becoming more green because it’s important to me. This is not about making people feel guilty about what they’re doing. On the contrary, everybody needs to do what’s right for them by taking ownership of what they’re doing and how they’re doing it” – Jayni Chase

Our National Executive Director Phil Koch was also given the opportunity to speak about the importance of providing every community with education opportunities around sustainable and green practices.

“To truly change our world, sustainable practices must happen in every community. Environmental education is completely missing in our urban public high schools. This epidemic will only make the racial achievement gap that much greater.” – Phil Koch

Please check out the article!

http://www.w2wmagazine.com/2012/05/03/253/

The Environmental Justice Club at Al Raby High School met on May 2nd.   Sam Burkhardt from the Chicago Ornithological Society stopped by to share his passion and wisdom of local birds found in the area.  The students were  excited to learn about all the different types of birds as well as how humans impact the bird habitats and health. We are hoping to get out to the garden in the next couple of weeks–and when we do the students will be able to identify all the birds that fly by!

We made it to sunny Denver, Colorado for the Green Schools National Conference.  Al Raby School for Community and Environment brought a group of five students as representatives.  This trip was a trip full of first times for many students.  Their first plane ride, their first time out of Illinois, their first national conference, their first time trying seitan (wheat gluten fake meat) hot wings, and even their first time staying away from home!  All of the students attended the Student Summit on Monday where they were broken up into four content strands: Food, Water, Resources, and Energy.  During the summit they had a chance to share ideas and exchange stories about issues their schools face.  Each group came up with an action plan to help address the issues they discussed.  On Tuesday and Wednesday the students attended the regular conference breakout sessions and attended keynote address.  One keynote speaker in particular had a profound impact on a few of the students, Majora Carter, who formed the non-profit environmental justice solutions organization Sustainable South Bronx.  The Environmental Justice Club plans to stay in touch with Carter since they too are becoming environmental leaders.  The students came up with an action list of ideas from the conference.  Here are some of their ideas: working to use natural sunlight in classrooms, supplying all incoming freshman with reusable Al Raby water bottles, creating an effective healthy eating campaign through direct cause and effect, and working to use teenagers as voices for environmental causes (good gossip).  Over the next few weeks we will be creating an energy conservation plan which will include many of these ideas.  Stay tuned for more on the energy conservation plan!

The Green Schools National Conference is an opportunity for The Green Schools National Network to celebrate the great work that  Green Schools across the country are accomplishing. The MGR Foundation’s Green Community Schools (GCS) program will be playing a huge part in the 2nd Annual Green Schools Conference in Denver from February 27-29.  This is the only national gathering of K-12 leaders and educators coming together to make their schools and districts green and healthy centers of academic excellence.  GCS will be sending 21 students, 7 teachers, 1 assistant principal and 4 MGR Foundation staffers to this exciting event from.  These students and supporters represent the great cities of Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, and Chicago.

GCS  will be providing expertise to other attendees on the subject of best practice of utilizing Green Strategies in academic settings.  Our Board President Jayni Chase will be serving as an expert on the importance of partnerships and creating strong networks when looking to provide Green based outreach.    MGR Foundation Executive, Phil Koch will be serving on a panel that discusses the importance of  ensuring diversity in the Green Schools Movement.  The GCS students will take part in the Student Summit by having their ideas heard and taking in new information regarding embracing a Green lifestyle.

For more information about the 2nd Annual Green Schools Conference please click here.