The Green Schools Quest – An Adventure in Mentorship, Part 1

The first time I heard about the US Green Building Council’s Green Schools Quest mentor program, I knew I had to get involved. This unique project connects schools who want to become more sustainable with Green Mentors to help them follow through with their project.

The projects I read about were so cool – kids were learning about water and energy conservation, local food, recycling, and composting – and then putting that knowledge to use with measurable action items for their schools and communities.

I hoped that my experience as the Program Manager of the Green Dining Alliance would lend itself to working with a school to improve recycling habits, start composting, and trying to source more local, healthy food… but I was a little nervous.  I have tons of experience working with restaurants – and virtually no experience whatsoever working with children, and I had no idea what to expect.

I’ll be blogging about my experience as a proud Green School Mentor here on St. Louis Earth Day’s website every few weeks – be sure to check back for updates and to find out whether or not I survived!

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In October, I was paired with Carver Elementary – I was so excited to get a school in the city, and even more excited when I began emailing with my contact there, teacher Brittany Tate-Beaugard. Brittany immediately came across as a force of nature – smart, funny, passionate, and extremely creative. As an art teacher, Brittany explained that she has a special knack for re-purposing items that would otherwise be destined for the landfill. On our first visit, she showed me the incredible, Chihuly-like chandelier made from re-purposed water bottles that hangs in their stairwell.

I was pleased to learn that Carver was already ahead of the game on many environmental issues. They even recycle all of their plastic bags with Trex, who turns them into plastic lumber (among other things). So far this year, they’ve recycled over 102 pounds of plastic film with Trex!

Seeing as they were already ahead of the game, I figured their Green School Quest project would be ambitious, and I was right. When I asked what sort of project Brittany and the Green Team at Carver Elementary wanted to do, I was presented with a laundry list of ideas – they were getting composting bins into the school in just a few weeks and would need to prepare for that change, their raised garden beds were terrorized and vandalized over the summer and they wanted to fix those up, they wanted to improve their waste diversion (getting more stuff to the recycling center and less stuff to the landfill), and reduce their single-use plastic waste.

After our first visit, I left with some action items – get Brittany more soil and seeds for her raised beds, and connect her with materials about good composting habits. I left her with some action items as well, including coming up with a name for our project.

The name she landed on is golden: “Carver’s Efforts to Reduce our Waste-Line: From Crumbs to Compost.”

Brittany emailed me a few days after our visit with a seemingly unrelated question – “do you know where I can get re-usable water bottles?” She explained that the drinking fountains at Carver tested positive for lead contamination last year, and, although they test fine now, some parents understandably don’t want their kids drinking from the fountain- this means they are sent to school with single-use plastic bottles of water, soda, or fruit drinks. She thought that if she could get a re-usable water bottle for every student, the kids could fill them up at home. This solution would set parent’s minds at ease while avoiding single-use plastic water bottles, which can be recycled, but are an extremely wasteful use of resources. It takes 17 million barrels of oil annually to make the 29 billion water bottles we use every year, and that doesn’t include the oil used to ship the bottles to your local store!

I asked around, and I discovered that most of the people I know through my work at St. Louis Earth Day had no fewer than 10 reusable water bottles lying around their houses – that’s what happens when you go to environmentally focused events; you get water bottles with logos on them. I set up a reusable water drive, and within a few days we had hundreds of reusable bottles!

Brittany decided to make stickers with Carver’s logo so the kids could decorate and personalize the bottles, which we hope to have cleaned and delivered in the start of the New Year!

While I’ve been collecting bottles, Brittany has been keeping busy- she has introduced a vermiculture composting bin with live worms into her classroom to help kids learn about the process of how food turns into healthy soil, composting has been fully implemented in the cafeteria (with kids sorting and making sure it’s going well), seedlings have been started in Brittany’s classroom, and the Green Team has been designing posters to help educate students and staff about good recycling and composting habits!

Carver is well on its way to becoming a Green School – be sure to check back throughout the year to check in on our progress!

-Jenn DeRose, Program Manager of the Green Dining Alliance