What are other schools doing?

Cimarron Middle School teachers and the environmental team have teamed up with Lone Tree Compositing and the Sustainability Department to implement a pilot commercial compost program within the school.  

The program consists of the following actions:

• Engage Green Teams during the spring semester of the school year prior to beginning composting.
• Ensure multi-stakeholder buy-in at each location; Principal, Teachers, Students, Custodial…
• Conduct waste audits 
• Work with the waste hauler to verify what can be composted, and the composting process
• Create a sustainable plan for students to compost in the cafeteria 4 days a week.
• Ongoing compost education for students and staff

The students started composting in the cafeteria on 9/20.  Each day is documented on how the day went and the improvement process.  Cimarron just started weighing the compost this week and the students are excited to see the number of resources they have saved from the landfill.

Come back to this page to see the progress Cimarron has made. 

Sedalia Elementary students and staff celebrated their 5th annual Green Ribbon Celebration this year. All students and staff worked together to pick up trash in their community neighborhood to honor their Green Ribbon.

Sedalia was awarded the Green Ribbon from the US Department Of Education Green Ribbon Schools in 2017 for continuously working to reduce its impact on the environment, improve health and wellness, and provide all students with effective environmental and sustainability education. Five years later, they are still making a difference in students' lives, the community, and environmental education. 

The Green Ribbon day was honored with a kick-off assembly accompanied by some special guests:

Andrew Abner

Erin Mcdonald

Kevin Leung

Eileen Santolaya

Then out to the neighborhood, they went. Students found that the community was cleaner than some other times in the past but their efforts were still successful with gathering several bags of trash. Later, teachers read and discussed the book "What If Everybody Did That" by Ellen Javernick. 

Whether students are out studying in the garden or learning arithmetic or other instruction it shows that spending time outdoors is critical to student academic, physical, and mental wellbeing.  The initiatives that Sedalia students have the opportunity to learn from are:

• recycling (even difficult items)
• composting
• indoor and outdoor gardens
• chicken program
• health and wellness
• energy conservation and awareness

The impact of the community clean-up along with the culture at the Sedalia is one that these students will remember for a lifetime.

US-Again's first-ever "Battle of the Schools" Collection Challenge had 89 participants throughout the United States competing to reduce school waste. This national clothing and shoe collection drive brought a fun, meaningful event to our school communities and built a sense of doing something positive for the environment. DCSD Office of Sustainability is proud to say that we had 7 schools participating in the textile recycle challenge. The schools gathered unwanted items out of their closets, knowing they were going to be recycled for a good cause. Our schools rescued 6,522 lbs of textiles from the landfill in just one month!

US-Again plants 1 tree for every full collection bin. During this competition, our schools contributed enough clothes to plant 16 trees and clothe 130 people.

Participating schools in the US-Again Collection Challenge. 

• Roxborough Intermediate - 1824 lbs
• Renaissance Elementary - 1249 lbs
• Northridge Elementary - 1149 lbs
• Pine Grove Elementary - 1034 lbs
• Coyote Creek Elementary - 845 lbs
• Rockridge Elementary - 245 lbs
• Iron Horse Elementary - 173 lbs

Chickens are an exciting part of the school curriculum. Schoolyard flocks are used in active learning programs where students receive a hands-on education. In addition to being fun for the classroom, backyard chickens help educate students on responsibility, biology, animal care, economics, marketing, and of course, where their food comes from.