Sustainability education has taken root in area schools

Top, West Patent Elementary students inspect a beehive. CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS

By PAUL WIEMAN

Sustainability, climate change, earth science, ecology, environmental studies — all of these are inter-related topics, and they wind their way through all grade levels found in the Katonah-Lewisboro and Bedford Central school districts. 

Whether it be kindergarteners raising chicks they watched hatch from eggs, or juniors and seniors preparing for the AP environmental studies examination, students in both districts encounter over the years and in several academic departments ways to learn about our planet — and the systems that make it work or are stressing it.

Jim Panzer, a John Jay High School physics teacher and member of the district sustainability leadership team, has seen significant growth in this area since he started to serve in this position.

“Originally, I felt like an island, throwing out thoughts and ideas and hoping teachers would listen and take up the torch,” he said. “Now, a few years later, teachers come to me with their own thoughts and ideas and are looking for ways to collaborate and integrate sustainability into their curriculum.” 

He cites one example: the JJHS English department, in their selection for community summer readings this past year, picked books that featured a sustainability theme, giving students a chance to explore this topic beyond the science classroom.

West Patent Elementary School coordinator, Denise Connolly, speaks of an active and ongoing sustainability program at the elementary school level happening at West Patent.

“First-graders raise chicks after watching the eggs hatch, second-graders don beekeeping outfits and work with the hives, and third-graders tap trees,” she said. “In addition, the woods on the grounds have paths in which students can do bird counts and manage the data they collect.” All of this gives students an appreciation for the world around them, the needs of animals and systems they are studying, and the hands-on activity for them to act like young scientists. 

AP environmental science students from John Jay at Lake Waccabuc.

Jane Emig, a fourth-grade teacher at Increase Miller Elementary School and a member of the district’s sustainability leadership team, started a program for all elementary schools in KLSD called “Earth chats.” Classrooms are encouraged, in a morning meeting format, to discuss Earth-based topics around the theme of being kind to the Earth and making responsible choices. 

As an example of community connection and sustainability education, Emig highlighted a partnership with Almstead Nursery & Mulch: the school combines Earth Day and Arbor Day and each student is given a seedling tree donated by the nursery to plant at home, and collectively, they plant a tree at the school. In addition, the school promotes waste-free Wednesdays, and teachers and students discuss ways to reduce waste in the lunchroom and beyond. Students then weigh the lunchroom garbage on Wednesdays, track the data over time, and strive for a zero-waste lunch day.

While elementary schools feature outdoor gardens, and, in some cases, a greenhouse, Melissa Brady, a science teacher in John Jay Middle School and an instructional coach with sustainability focus, highlights the aquaponic system she has in her classroom.

“It’s an opportunity to show students innovative ways to grow food in all climates, even growing without land or soil,” she noted. 

“What we aim to do in the middle school is look at something that is happening on the planet and unpack it,” Brady said. “What can we learn from weather phenomena using data, up to the minute graphs, water patterns, and more. With this information, we can get our students to ask questions, probe data, and think like scientists while discussing relevant, real-life topics they see all around them.”

Looking ahead into the near future, Brady hopes to pilot a program that strengthens a current relationship with Hilltop Hanover Farm & Environmental Center into a more formal partnership with multiple visits to the farm and visits from those who work the farm into the classroom. 

By next year, all eighth graders in both districts will be enrolled in an Earth science class, and this will be followed by a ninth-grade biology class that will include eco-systems in its curriculum.

At the Harvey School, Nicole Tantillo, head of the science and math departments, explains that three years ago AP environmental science entered the science curriculum and has had an increased demand ever since. In addition, “common ground” is a ninth-grade class team taught by science, art, and English teachers and, according to Tantillo, “asks students to become more connected to their immediate surroundings, starting with their own campus and then expanding to the immediate community and beyond.”

In pursuit of this goal, students have visited Sonic Innovations at nearby Caramoor and enjoyed an orienteering class at Westmoreland Sanctuary. 

“We have tapped trees for three years now, and this year we studied what was the most sustainable way to boil the sap, comparing wood burning to other fossil fuels,” Tantillo said.

Another project that is in the works and expanding is the creation of a vegetable garden and its link to a course, “Harvey grown,” which combines related readings with hands-on experience of gardening. “Lettuce has made its way to the cafeteria salad bar,” Tantillo reported. 

An innovative campus decision, and one that serves as a model for students to see, was the enlisting of a small group of goats to help eliminate invasive species, particularly porcelain-berry, from the campus. Tantillo was pleased that the AP environmental students were able to discuss its benefits to the campus and the community.

Both John Jay and Fox Lane high schools have stable and healthy enrollments in their AP environmental studies courses, and each high school boasts creative and popular electives. 

Panzer’s popular environmental physics class offers an opportunity for older students to get hands-on learning about many issues related to sustainability. One participatory activity involves students sleeping outdoors for a night (in their backyards) to learn the lessons of entropy, heat transfer and more. They study the data and then experience personally the lessons learned. Panzer makes sure he does the experiential lab as well. A second exercise in this class is students designing their own home and building a model. 

“In our discussions regarding energy,” Panzer said, “we talk about the pluses and minuses of different choices, and then the students get to decide for themselves.” Students in the fourth-grade study energy, and the students in Panzer’s class go to a fourth-grade classroom and present their home energy solutions, a win-win for all. 

Another innovative elective is taught by Jelena Dossena, a Fox Lane science teacher in her 21st year in the district. She has created SUNY “natural disasters,” a course in which high school students may also get college credit through a relationship with the State University of New York at Oneonta.

“In this class, we focus on natural disasters, and the news impacts the curriculum each year,”she states. “Wildfires in California, floods in Asheville, tornado season … all this steers me towards what the students learn each year,” said Dossena. 

Students examine the science behind the disasters and determine what people can and cannot control. How should bridges and buildings be better built to absorb shock? Can we do anything about meteors hurtling near Earth? 

“We actually study a little bit of everything; the students need to be scientifically literate, and they need to know their math and their history as we examine real places and real events,” Dossena said.

And not all learning is from faraway places. Shortly after Hurricane Sandy in 2012, students in the natural disasters class walked from the back of Fox Lane campus directly into Westmoreland Sanctuary, and saw for themselves the destruction of this close-to-home natural disaster. 

While sustainability is strongly emphasized in the district’s curriculum, district practices in this area have also been the recent focus of public criticism leveled at the Bedford Central School Board over the issue of supporting a composting program in the district schools.   

Up and down the curriculum, area schools address earth science, environmental science, and sustainability. Classrooms, campuses, local parks, community businesses, and SUNY all join together in this comprehensive effort to teach students both the wonders of our planet and the current stresses it is experiencing. 

“With continuing support from and communication with all of our stakeholders, from students to the Board of Ed, the future of the education of sustainability looks strong,” Brady said.

This article is part of a continuing series exploring how local schools are addressing the teaching of science and its related fields — technology, engineering, and mathematics — collectively referred to as STEM. This independently-reported series in The Recorder is made possible by a grant from Regeneron.