Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Mapping our Waste Stream

Yesterday we had a great day at June Jordan School for Equity in our garden-based environmental justice elective, called the Green Revolution, and taught by Ms. Huang. We completed the first step of our new campaign to reduce school waste through recycling & composting. The students are conducting youth-led action research, in order to assess the level of recycling of waste currently going on at school, to figure out what needs to be done to improve it, and to create a school-wide campaign to make that change.

Resources we’ve drawn on so far include SF Environment’s Food to Flowers school recycling program, and the Youth Leadership Institute’s youth-led action research & planning curriculum.

Last week the students collected data on all the trash and recyclables being thrown away in every part of the school. Yesterday they put them together on a map of the school, to see where and how trash is moving. Next step, they’ll ask questions about who is recycling and why, and they’ll survey and interview youth and adults at school about their opinions and behaviors regarding recycling & composting.


Meanwhile, the students are caring for red wriggler worms in the classroom, to get to know them up close and personal before starting a worm bin.






4 comments:

Eric Mar said...

thanks for your great work abby and to all the students at june jordan, burbank ms and ida b. wells too.
eric

Anonymous said...

Love all the work the Green Revolution is doing! The school is recycling more instead of throwing things away that end up in the landfills. Thanks to all the students who are making this happen (and Abby and Ms. Huang). You are leading the way to a better environment for all of us!

P.S. I love the posters that you put up too!

-Ms. Goka-Lee

Anonymous said...

look at all the data! the charts! the maps! i love this blog!!
thank you to ms. huang's class for saving our earth!

ms.clements

Anonymous said...

like, omg, like you guys are totally going to, like save the PLANET for us all!!! Psych, I really think this is a major part of our school's commitment to justice.

Congratulations!

Ms. Shange